From Ukraine to the U.S., then the U.K.

Greg: My mom was a single mom. She was a teacher, so she didn’t have a very big salary. I grew up with my mom being at work most of the time, so I had to take care of myself a lot. But I think the most formative experience for me was immigrating.

When I was 16, we moved to the U.S. At that time, it was possible to get refugee status. We arrived with no money—just a couple of suitcases. At that age, I became the de facto head of the family, trying to figure things out.

I eventually went into private equity, working out of London and then Warsaw. But I always kept an eye on Ukraine. I was curious about how it was developing, and I felt a bit nostalgic. That nostalgia led me to move back for the next eight years after my private equity career. That experience fulfilled my personal mission—I reconnected with that part of my identity, which enabled me to move on and eventually transition to Asia.

Returning to Ukraine to Build a Bank

Greg: In Central Europe—Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary—there was a huge wave of consumer finance. That’s when I learned that it’s essentially a derivative play on middle-class disposable income. Then, in the 2000s, Russia and Ukraine started experiencing the same trend.

I made an angel investment in one of the first consumer lending companies in Ukraine. Eventually, they needed to either merge with a bank or strike a deal with one.

At that point, the private equity guys said, Greg, why don’t you move back to Ukraine and actually build it together with us as CEO?

Taking the Proverbial Boat to Southeast Asia

Greg: After we sold Platinum Bank, my plan was to take a sabbatical. I wanted to spend some time sailing.

Part of my decision to move to Southeast Asia was cultural fit, but of course, the business opportunity here is tremendous.

When I started looking at the region’s consumer finance landscape, I saw that we were at the beginning of a hockey-stick growth phase. And I had a crystal ball from other parts of the world where this had already happened. I had seen how the industry takes off like a hockey stick.

Consumer finance is probably one of the largest single asset class opportunities in the world today.

Some companies I looked at were in the B2B part of the value chain—credit, underwriting, collections. Others were retail. When I analyzed consumer lending, it was clear that the Philippines was by far the biggest market. That’s why we launched Asia Credit. Filipinos definitely want online credit.

Addressing the Challenge and Opportunity of Consumer Finance in the Philippines

Greg: It’s a massive opportunity, but we ran into a major constraint—banks wouldn’t lend to us. Family offices could only provide very small and expensive credit lines.

So if you want to scale your balance sheet into the billions of dollars—which is what the Philippines needs—you need deposits. And the only way to take deposits is to have a banking license.

That’s what led me to approach the central bank and say, Guys, can you give me a license to both collect deposits digitally and lend digitally? Because it’s only by connecting those two that we can truly build proper credit access in this country.

We brought this idea to the head of credit inclusion at the central bank. She was extremely intelligent and really understood how fintech would be critical in solving credit inclusion in the Philippines.

Her proposal was:

“We’d like to make you our sandbox for a digital banking license. We don’t have a digital bank license category yet, so apply for a rural bank license. But it will be a very special one—we’ll put you into a sandbox, let you build a purely digital business, and then write the regulations based on what we learn. Eventually, we’ll convert you into Digital Bank License #1.”

It was an incredible collaboration and co-ideation. I don’t think I could have achieved this anywhere outside the Philippines.

Pioneering Digital Banking in the Philippines

Mila Bedrenets (Tonik Chief Growth Hacker): The sheer ambition of launching something so big and bold—that’s the kind of challenge I love.

Wanda Pascua (Head of Marketing): When I saw the branding and visited the website, it wasn’t like a traditional bank at all. That’s what caught my attention. Honestly, I don’t think I would have joined if it were just another traditional bank.

Greg: There’s still a strong class mentality in this country. A lot of people don’t feel entirely comfortable walking into a bank branch because they think banks are for the rich, by the rich.

Breaking through that perception with our branding is something we’re quite proud of. None of the other digital banks have embraced an FMCG-style (fast-moving consumer goods) branding approach like we have.

We were actually rated one of the top five digital banks in the world for customer experience. I think our branding played a huge role in that.

Mila: We believe everyone should have the same access to earning interest, regardless of their income. Whether someone starts with just 5,000 pesos or has millions, they should receive the same earning potential.

For us, it wasn’t about having a hundred customers with millions of pesos. No—we wanted millions of customers with 5,000 pesos each. That’s our target.

We also reduced our onboarding questionnaire from 50 questions to just seven. Our thinking was, Where else can we pull this data from? Today, our conversion rates are excellent because the process is simple—it only takes five minutes.

At the same time, it’s highly predictive in terms of risk. We’re leveraging a lot of data behind the scenes, using what we already know about our customers and their previous interactions with us.

Wanda: As an industry, we’re all working together to advance the Philippines’ banking system, financial regulations, and fintech landscape.

Technology is evolving so fast, and we want to make sure Filipinos have the right financial tools. It’s about equipping people with the ability to manage their finances properly and access credit in a way that truly benefits them.