Agricultural credit unveiled in Philippines to bridge US$6 billion agri-credit gap

Agriculture is a crucial part of the Philippines’ economy, with almost 60% of the nation’s poor employed in the sector’s agriculture, forestry, fishing, and aquaculture industries.

Yet the credit gap for the sector sits at over 360 billion pesos (US$6.3 billion), according to the central bank.

Two Philippine mobile payments services, GCash and Mynt, have therefore joined forces to introduce agricultural credit.

The two tech players teamed up with a joint mandate to create the Philippines’ largest agri-credit movement to bank the rural unbanked. GCash and agri-technology firm Mayani will leverage the latter’s supply chain data to underwrite and jointly facilitate loans for organized farmers and fisherfolks needing a production lifeline to provide them quality inputs from Mayani, boost their yield, and enhance their capability to meet market demand while building their credit track record. For their pilot, borrowers will come from agricultural cooperatives and associations in Batangas province, one of Mayani’s rural strongholds.  

Following this, Mayani intends to integrate its end-to-end proprietary tech stack with GCash’ to index on their lending balance sheet, quantum reach, and loan approval to e-wallet disbursement infrastructure. 

“By leveraging on modern technology’s financial transformation, agriculture, which is one of the most important industries of our nation, can experience rapid growth and sustainability. We are honored to have Mayani onboard as one of our key partners as we continue introducing innovations that will help connect farmers with finance and enhance the power of financial inclusion in the Philippines,” said Tony Isidro, President and CEO of Fuse Lending, the licensed lending arm of Mynt. 

Image: One of Mayani’s partner farmers from the Malaruhatan Family Farm Association, a grassroots group of organized farmers producing lowland vegetables in Southern Luzon, Philippines