i2i, the banking-as-a-service platform and open finance community under UBX, expects business to grow by as much as 300% in 2022. This year’s growth comes after recording significant results in 2021 on the back of strong demand for banking services across the country.

The platform ended 2021 with 44 times growth as it turned ordinary merchants into banking agents that offer a suite of banking solutions to unserved and underserved communities.

i2i attributes this growth to the demand for its mobile ATM services, which allows merchants to allow cardholders to withdraw cash from their accounts through a handheld ATM device.

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“2021 was a year of immense growth for i2i,” said Anne Yosuico, managing director for Banking Services, UBX. “With the growing demand for financial services in the country, especially from the unserved and underserved, we were able to grow the business exponentially. We are realizing even more growth in 2022 with our goal to grow by 300% on the back of a stronger focus on agency banking.”

Agency banking

Agency banking refers to a banking model that transforms ordinary merchants (neighborhood store owners, general merchandise stores, or any registered business) into cash agents.

Through digital technology, agents offer a spectrum of banking solutions from performing know-your-customer (KYC) processes, disbursing funds, processing bills payments, accepting deposits, accepting and processing loan applications digitally, to selling insurance, among many others.

“There is a huge opportunity for us to bring financial services closer to Filipinos through agency banking. Our goal at UBx remains the same: to make finance more inclusive in the Philippines, and this will be further promoted through i2i,” Yosuico said.

i2i aggregates banking services and integrates them with other financial services on the UBX Open Finance platform, allowing for more personalized and democratized access to financial services for Filipinos through its network partners. Currently, i2i can be accessed in three ways: a mobile application, a website, and a set of application programming interfaces (APIs).

i2i is built on blockchain and open finance technologies offering financial transactions, including but not limited to wallet transfers, domestic transfers, bills payment, mobile scoring, mobile ATM, and offline and online loan processing, among others.