Billease, the fintech brand operated by First Digital Finance Corp., announced Thursday it has signed a P1 billion credit facility with Philippine National Bank (PNB), the lender led by the Lucio Tan group. The transaction marks a key milestone in local fintech funding, leveraging the country’s Personal Property Security Registry (PPSR) to establish a registered first-rank claim for PNB over a pool of Billease’s consumer loan receivables.
Structured under the Personal Property Security Act, the arrangement offers a new, replicable template for Philippine banks to extend financing against fintech receivables with enhanced security. The facility is built on three core protections: Billease pledges a larger value of consumer loans than the amount borrowed to maintain collateral value above outstanding obligations; the receivables pool is refreshed regularly, with repaid or delinquent loans replaced with new accounts; and repayments from underlying customers are directed under a priority structure that places PNB first in line for settlement. For PNB, the facility provides a secure, efficient channel to gain exposure to the fast-growing retail consumer credit market, with risk distributed across a large base of small, short-term borrowers and monthly pool rotations.
The agreement reflects growing confidence among the country’s largest financial institutions in the quality of Billease’s consumer finance assets and underwriting practices. As the fintech expands, broadening its local funding base has become a strategic priority to improve operational efficiency and economic sustainability. AlphaPrimus Advisors served as transaction advisor for the facility.
Financial data as of end-2025 underscores the company’s capacity to support additional funding arrangements: Billease reported total equity of approximately P6.4 billion against total borrowings of P7.1 billion, translating to a debt-to-equity ratio of roughly 1x and leaving substantial headroom for future credit facilities.
“We are deliberately expanding our local funding base here at home, with the country’s leading banks, because that allows us to keep serving more Filipinos with affordable, responsible credit,” said Georg Steiger, co-founder and chief executive officer of Billease. “We have built a profitable business that scales without compromising on underwriting standards, and relationships like this let us fund that growth locally, on improving terms.”
Founded in 2017 as a homegrown Philippine fintech platform, Billease was established to deliver formal credit and installment options to the country’s unbanked and underbanked populations.
