Finastra’s Fusion Essence Cloud will support TONIK in launching retail deposit and customer loans services in the Philippines

Finastra Tonik

TONIK founder and CEO Greg Krasnov. (Credit: PRNewsfoto/Finastra.)

UK-based financial technology firm Finastra has announced that its Fusion Essence in the cloud has been selected by TONIK, a Philippines-based digital bank, to support its core banking capabilities.

Finastra’s Fusion Essence Cloud is expected to support TONIK in launching its retail deposit and customer loans services in the Philippines and provide agility and scalability for the bank.

TONIK is launching operations in 2020 in the Philippines through its own bank license. Founded in 2018, the company’s support and research and development (R&D) functions are based in Singapore and Chennai, India.

Finastra retail banking general manager Anand Subbaraman said: “TONIK is well positioned to replicate the disruption that has taken place in Europe, where digital banks have quickly attracted millions of customers and billions of dollars in investor funding.

“Using digital technologies and a lower-cost operating model, TONIK will be able to offer customers the products and services they need, delivered in a convenient way, as well as increasing opportunities for financial inclusion in Asia. Fusion Essence Cloud is ideally suited to help TONIK achieve these goals, as well as see a fast return on its investment.”

Finastra’s solution will allow TONIK to diversify its product set cost-effectively

The deployment of the Fusion Essence Cloud solution for the digital bank will be done out of the Microsoft Azure Southeast Asia Region, facilitating both low latency and data residency.

The benefits from the deployment of Finastra’s solution for the digital-only-bank will include a low cost of entry into the market, ease and speed of deployment.

It will also enable TONIK with an ability to increase business volumes and diversify its product set cost-effectively.

Further, the company will be provided software updates and access to future innovations through Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud, which is a platform of Finastra for open innovation and the development of applications.

TONIK founder and CEO Greg Krasnov said: “The banking sector in the Philippines is ripe for digital disruption. The country has high internet usage, the majority of Filipinos are unbanked and research shows half of the people who do have bank accounts would be interested in switching to a neobank.

“We want to create a hyper-compelling consumer proposition that will revolutionize the way money works in the region. Finastra’s Fusion Essence Cloud – powered by Microsoft Azure – will give us the agility to get these services to market quickly and efficiently.”

Fusion Essence Cloud is also deployed by European neobanks, including revverbank and Gravity.