FINTECH COMPANY Paywatch wants to grow the user base of its earned wage access (EWA) tool to under one million, with the Philippine market expected to be a key driver.

“The Philippines is a very important core market. I would say the four core markets for us today are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea,” Alex Kim, president and co-founder of Paywatch, said at a media brief-ing on Thursday.

“I think globally, in the next 12 months, we are targeting a little less than a million employee base across the six countries, and a significant amount of that should, I hope, come from the Philippines.”

The company is the largest provider of real-time salary access in Southeast Asia, allowing employees to access their already earned income for their financial needs and at no cost to employers.

Among its Philippine users, 78% said that the tool helps employees better manage expenses, 48% reported a reduction in household debt, and 34% saw an increase in savings.

To date, the company has 350,000 employees on its platform, of which 100,000 are from the Philippines.

“I think right now, currently, we have 70 companies (in the Philippines),” he said, noting that the company’s partners are mostly large enterprises.

Paywatch has some 300 partner conglomerates across the six countries where it operates, namely, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea.

Sandeep Mulajkar, managing director at Paywatch, said the company is also looking at onboarding more small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“In our current portfolio, we do have SMEs as well. We constantly look at that sector. We also constantly evaluate our posture in the industry and in the economy,” he said.

“Definitely, that’s a mission. I mean, the drivers of the economy are the micro, small and medium enterprises,” said Paywatch Philippines President Rowell O. Del Fierro, adding that they are working on a partnership with an in-stitution to tap small businesses.

Most of their partner companies in the country are in the information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) sector, he said.

“A lot of the multinational companies do have a strong appetite and programs for their employee wellbeing. So, some of these industries, and you already know them, have higher attrition rates. So, they have business problems to resolve. And this is a very innovative, meaningful add-on to their benefits that doesn’t really cost them anything.”

This may also be influenced by how EWA tools are already widely used in the countries where most IT-BPM firms in the Philippines are headquartered, Mr. Mulajkar said.

“This is a very well-known product in the US… So, folks who are actually the decision-makers who might be sitting overseas or in the US actually know and understand this product. So, that’s something which is coming up as a major theme for us,” he added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Del Fierro said that there are also plans to tap the government as it is the top employer in the Philippines. “Working with the government has its own challenges, [but] we’re going to get there, I think, by proving ourselves in the private sector and making it mainstream.”

Paywatch added that financial wellness is becoming central to workforce strategy and talent retention, not only in the Philippines but also across Southeast Asia. — Justine Irish D. Tabile

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