Voyager Innovations has raised USD 167 million in funding to power financial services in the Philippines through its financial technology arm PayMaya. Participating in this funding round were existing shareholders PLDT, global investment firm KKR and China’s Tencent. Voyager welcomed IFC Financial Institutions Growth Fund as a new investor.
Voyager recently expanded PayMaya’s mobile wallet, payments processing, and digital remittance businesses. Voyager is now leveraging this ecosystem to expand into digital banking in the Philippines. To this end, it applied for a digital bank license with the country’s central bank, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
Voyager will use the new funds to expand its PayMaya services and to continue enabling more unbanked and underserved individuals and MSMEs with new products, such as credit, insurance, savings, and investments, through a soon-to-be-established digital bank.
Once granted a digital bank license by the BSP, the new entity plans to provide mobile-first, paperless, smart neo-banking services using PayMaya’s technology platforms.
This investment includes USD 121 million in fresh funding and USD 46 million from previously committed funds. KKR makes its investment from its Asia private equity fund. IFC Emerging Asia Fund, a fund managed by IFC AMC, is also an investor in Voyager.
