Philippines digital banking | Kalidas Ghose, UNO | Ep. 75

Kalidas Ghose is co-founder and chairman of UNO Digital Bank, one of six purely digital banks licensed to operate in the Philippines. UNO’s parent company just raised $32.1 million in additional venture-capital funding.

Ghose speaks with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about the opportunities for digital banking in the Philippines, the question of deposit size versus customer numbers, the challenges of non-performing loans, and expected innovations around digital identity and open banking.

He also compares the Philippines’ fintech environment to that of Vietnam, where for many years he ran one of Vietnam’s leading digital lenders.

• Timecodes:
• 0:00 – Kalidas Ghose, UNO Digital Bank
• 1:40 – UNO’s competitive offering
• 4:58 – Tiny deposit size versus growing user numbers
• 8:50 – Onboarding the unbanked
• 10:00 – Incentives to attract customers
• 11:15 – The funding model
• 12:31 – The challenge of high non-performing loan ratios
• 16:03 – UNO’s strategy as a pure startup
• 19:00 – Partnering with GCash
• 22:01 – Kali’s experience in Vietnam
• 24:58 – Central bank initiatives and open banking
• 28:18 – New business services for small businesses