Tencent and other investors seal $167 million investment in Voyager, the company behind PayMaya

Manila-based fintech company Voyager Innovations secured $167 million worth of new funding today. Voyager owns PayMaya, one of the most popular financial super apps in the Filipino market.

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Existing shareholders, Tencent, KKR, and PLDT, the Philippines' biggest telecom company, have participated in the latest investment. The IFC-owned fund, IFC Financial Institutions Growth Fund, also joins the round as a new investor.

With the new fund secured, Voyager also announced that it has applied for a digital bank license with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas ("BSP"), the country's central bank. Once granted a digital bank license by the BSP, the new entity will provide neo-banking services based on PayMaya's technology platforms, providing more unbanked and underserved individuals and MSMEs with inclusive products, such as credit, insurance, savings, and investments.

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In April 2020, Voyager announced a $120 million investment commitment from PLDT, KKR, Tencent, the International Finance Group (IFC), and the IFC Emerging Asia Fund. Up till now, Voyager's total fundraising now reaches $452 million.

Alibaba-backed GCash, Go-Jek's Coins.ph, and Tencent-backed PayMaya are the three most popular mobile financial services in the Philippines. PayMaya has more than 38 million users in the Filipinos market.

PayMaya has more than 250,000 digital-finance access touchpoints in places such as convenience stores, where users can pay, top-up, cash out, or remit. Voyager says this is seven times the number of ATM and bank branches in the Philippines, making PayMaya more accessible than traditional banks, especially in remote or rural areas.

In the Philippines, only one in three Filipino adults has a formal bank account and has loans. Of those who have loans, only 3% have borrowed from banks, and more than 77% and 75% of the population do not have insurance and investments, respectively.

The country's central bank aims to digitalize 50% of the total volume of retail payments and expand the financially included to 70% Filipino adults by 2023.