PAYMAYA Philippines, Inc. is bullish on the financial technology adoption of Filipinos as it sees the value of transactions on its platform to expand 400% in the next three years.

Paolo Azzola, chief operating officer and managing director of the PLDT, Inc. financial technology business, told reporters last week the company is targeting to reach the trillion peso mark in terms of value of annual transactions by 2023.

“We’re focusing really on how much volume the company drives. (While) users are very important for us, what’s (more) important is how much do they use our platform,” he said.

“We’re looking at a number…of a trillion pesos to be processed every single year. That’s something that we are looking forward to by 2023,” he added, referring to the value of transactions within the PayMaya platform.

PayMaya currently records more than P200 billion in gross transaction volume every year.

“What’s driving the trajectory is the fact that we have a very large focus on our consumer business. (That is) allowing people to send money, pay bills, buy air time, buy online and shop face to face,” Mr. Azzola said, noting the consumer business contributes majority to PayMaya’s growth.

On the enterprise side, Mr. Azzola said PayMaya remains in expansion mode, with a target of reaching 80,000 merchants on its platform by the end of the year.

“All I can tell you is that we believe we have the largest active user base in the entire country at this point… In terms of active (users), we are higher than anyone else in the country,” he said.

“We’re very happy with conquering the Philippines and making sure that we are providing as much benefit as possible to Filipino consumers and Filipino businesses, as well as government… That’s what we’re focused on — to really make sure that the Philippines is our territory,” he added.

Through PLDT’s digital arm Voyager Innovations, Inc., which handles PayMaya, the company is guided by China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd., the developer of WeChat and WeChat Pay.

Tencent invested in Voyager last year together with US-based investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.; and World Bank’s International Finance Corp. (IFC) and IFC Emerging Asia Fund. PLDT has maintained its stake in Voyager at under 50%.

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Denise A. Valdez

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