Hardly has the Bank of the Philippine Islands warmed its seat when its board on Thursday decided to divest of their stake in the digital lender Gotyme Bank Corp. in a sale that would raise P902.5 million for the country’s fourth largest lender by assets.
The 752.1 million GoTyme Bank shares, which BPI acquired through its merger with the Gokongwei Group’s Robinsons Bank Corp., were sold to GoTyme Financial Pte. Ltd. and Giga Holdings Pte. Ltd. at a price of P1.20 a share. GoTyme Financial bought 744.1 million shares and the rest were acquired by Giga Holdings.
The transaction is still subject to central bank and other regulatory approvals.
GoTyme Bank was a joint venture formed by the Gokongwei Group and multi country digital banking group Tyme. It ended 2023 with over 2 million customers. At the end of September last year, Robinsons Bank still held an 18 percent stake in GoTyme Bank, down from 20 percent at the end of 2022.
The digital bank started commercial operations in the last quarter of 2022 and has since claimed 7th place in monthly Instapay volume and in active debit cards, 5th in finance apps, and has total outstanding deposits in excess of P10 billion. It has nearly 500 kiosks in the Gokongwei Group’s various retail facilities and other locations nationwide.
