Digital bank and e-wallet platform Maya is unlikely to undertake an initial public offering (IPO) in the next two years, according to the man himself, Manuel V. Pangilinan.
MVP to those who know him, the PLDT chairman and president said an IPO in the next two years is a “misplaced optimism” for Maya.
“They’re not in a position to IPO in the near future, period. I mean, they have to demonstrate that they can be profitable starting 2025 and to be consistently profitable for at least another year,” Pangilinan candidly acknowledged.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us. So to dream of an IPO in the next two years is simply an illusion. Please, don’t talk about it. It won’t happen. Plus the fact the market here is not conducive to an IPO,” he added.
Rival GCash earlier said it was considering undertaking an IPO in 2025. The mobile wallet of Globe Telecom was valued at over $2 billion in 2021 after raising $300 million from global investors.
Pangilinan admitted that Maya is way behind in the digital wallet business compared to rival GCash.
“What is the vocabulary, the vernacular for digital wallet? It’s not Maya, right? It’s GCash,” he said.
“Everybody knows that. It’s not a big deal. The digital bank is something, it’s a strength for Maya because Globe doesn’t have a digital bank. So that’s an advantage. But it is not growing as fast as it should be growing,” Pangilinan added.
This year, Maya is accelerating the rollout of its lending services to better serve the unbanked and the underbanked to further cement its position as the number one digital bank in the Philippines.
Since its launch, it had disbursed P34 billion in loans to close to a million borrowers as at end-March this year.
Maya has increased its depositor base by 95 percent to 3.4 million and its deposit balance by 40 percent to P29 billion.
As of December 2023, Maya accounted for 51 percent of the depositor base of the digital banking industry, maintaining its position as the #1 digital bank as ranked by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
