Globally, about 1.7 billion people remain financially excluded. In the Philippines more than 52 million adults or 77.4 percent of the total adult population remain unbanked. Without services like savings and insurance, families are vulnerable to economic insecurity – which limits their ability to plan, adapt to unexpected events, and provide the best nutrition, health, and education for their children.
To investigate potential solutions that can benefit the most financially excluded, ING and UNICEF have selected 5 startups developing digital solutions that aim to solve financial and banking challenges to receive equity-free investment and to engage in a 12-month support period.
The Fintech for Impact investment program was designed to accelerate their potential to launch new technology or tech-driven innovations that would help build economic security, encourage more equitable access to services, and lift financial barriers to opportunities to improve the lives of disadvantaged children, youth and families in the Philippines and beyond.
These startups are:
Agrabah which provides a platform that offers farmers and fisherfolk direct access to marketplaces and financing.
Beam&Go, which aims to empower migrant workers and overseas foreign workers (OFWs) through their payment and digital marketplace that gives users control over how remittances are spent by their families.
InvestEd, a platform for students loan for low-income and high-potential students.
reach52, the fintech which boosted its suite of offline-first apps to empower local women who can earn while serving their own communities by connecting families to affordable medicines, health products, and health information and services while encouraging the use of digital payments.
Saphron, through NAN.AI, an AI-powered tool, aims to improve efficiency for a primarily rural, female workforce of microinsurance agents (“nanays”) so they can reach more lower-income, rural families with affordable, accessible insurance and scanning and digitization of handwritten forms.
THE COLLABORATION
ING, a global financial institution with a strong European base, offering banking services through its operating company ING Bank and UNICEF which works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, to defend their rights, and to help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence are build a 14-year partnership focused on growing opportunity and empowerment through this pilot initiative.