Establishing a digital bank in a country that’s already saturated with multiple players isn’t easy. Doing so while in the waning days of a pandemic that’s upended both digital and physical business models sounds damn near impossible. But don’t tell that to Raymund Villanueva, Chief Marketing Officer of GoTyme Bank though – not only did he and his colleagues launch a brand-new digital bank during the pandemic, they’ve managed to beat all expectations and are on track to achieve their one-millionth customer by August, just 10 months since they started operations.

He credits their success to the “phygital” mantra that GoTyme follows like a religion. The word is a portmanteau of physical and digital, which underlines much of the strategy that GoTyme employs.

Phygital as a strategy

And while the idea of digital banks – financial institutions that exist mostly on your PC or an app – isn’t new, GoTyme took it to the next level. Where other digital banks had customers still submit application papers the old-fashioned way, GoTyme made sure that submitting necessary government documents to open an account was as smooth and as pain-free as possible. And while other digital banks usually do not have physical locations and personnel that customers could interact with, GoTyme has kiosks scattered nationwide with bank ambassadors. Ambassadors that people could interact with, which is a massive improvement over the usual chatbots that the customers of its competitors usually have to deal with.

“When we talk about Phygital, it’s physical and digital combined, but the word physical there does not mean it’s just we have a physical kiosk behind you. It’s not that in all actuality, it’s the approach that we have in how we do things. It’s humanity. It’s being able to talk to people as humans and not as account numbers, which is something we’re extremely proud of. And quite honestly, one of the hardest things to pull off,” he says.

“This is about humans. And part of our cornerstone is to make sure that we treat people, every single one of them, every single one of our customers, as human as possible,” he adds.

Runaway success

While the word phygital seems like an odd thing to pin your strategy on, the results speak for itself. GoTyme is about to hit 1 million customers by the end of the month, and activity on the ground around their kiosks as well as their Facebook page – which anyone can comment on, and where their CEO regularly posts updates – are the highest they’ve ever been. Raymund attributes that to their goal of providing people with a preferred banking experience, no matter if they’re an entrepreneur with millions in the bank, or a regular Juan stashing away a few thousand pesos a month for a rainy day.

“So I would love to say that it’s just magically happened, but it comes from the hard work of the humans here in GoTyme Bank. Everybody that’s working towards that same goal. Now there is that passion underneath of being able to provide a preferred banking experience to everyone. And that driving mission of being able to provide that human banking experience to everyone is quite honestly what drives that growth,” he says.

Our CEO asks our communities what features they want. We respond to that quite heavily. You can see our employees responding to customer complaints and education. We’re all required to become customer service for a day. And when we say that we’re human at heart or we look at our people as humans, it’s a little bit more than just a marketing spiel,” he adds.

“It is something that we firmly believe is the DNA of our brand. And that’s why when we came out, this heart already existed, but we never mentioned what it meant. Now the model has been proven that treat people like humans versus account numbers and people like it. So it’s not just about the million customers, it’s our super high activity rates too,” he says.

Digital lessons

Raymund, a digital marketer by trade, learned the hard way that a full, digital-only approach wasn’t going to cut it in a world run by humans, and not machines. His experience as the Director and Head of Business for PayMaya was an eye-opener for him, one that underlined the need for a human touch in a digital world.

“Launching Pay Maya from zero to 10 million users, and now launching GoTyme from really day zero to hopefully we get to the success that we were able to bring into Pay Maya. And the biggest thing that we picked up was there are a lot of nuances that digital cannot teach. And I think that’s critical.

“There is this huge element of human touch and this huge element of physical presence. And as a pure-play digital marketer, my background was US trained, and it’s all e-commerce and digital training for me to say that that was my first big mistake. I did everything so digitally focused and over-optimized and follow all the KPIs and did this science-based growth style. And that was my first mistake for a performance marketer at heart, to say that that’s not the right formula. Took me a while to swallow that bitter pill, and I’m all the better for it,” he adds.

The future, post COVID

The pandemic was the biggest transformative force for companies, which saw their digital plans accelerate from years to months. With the end of the pandemic, Raymund sees digital not as a strategy for companies to implement, but as a baseline that they need to build on, post-pandemic. And that’s where GoTyme is ahead.

“I would say digital is now the baseline, and it’s not a strategy, it’s a requirement to play. The first phase of fintech was, how do we give a financial account to everybody in the Philippines? And that was the e-wallet wars, the GCash versus PayMaya, which I participated in and enjoyed. Actually. Our boss, our CEO, Abet Tinio, used to head GCash, and he participated in it, and we both laugh at our war stories,” he says, laughing.

What we’re seeing now is the second phase of digital banking and fintech, which is how do we provide a preferred banking experience with digital as one of the mediums? The battleground isn’t pure-play digital. I’m a firm believer that there should be a different approach to things. Digital might seem cold at times, might seem AI-driven, and the technology is quite exciting. But as the world becomes more digital, as banking becomes more digital, it is a reason why we need to be more human,” he adds.

“I will tell you one thing. A premium experience doesn’t necessarily mean now that it’s a purely automated digital experience. It’s the reverse. A premium experience, a preferred banking experience comes from the human touch that this product or service aims to give. And I think that’s what GoTyme’s real core is it’s not just to provide a very beautiful digital experience, which we are, but also to provide a very premium preferred experience that is powered by humans,” he says.

No strings attached

One of the reasons for GoTyme’s success is the way that they conduct business when it comes to offering things to their customers. Take interest rates: while other digital banks and payment processors that double as banks give high-interest rates that usually come with certain conditions to get it, GoTyme offers their 5% interest rates to customers regardless of what they do.

“We’re not a fintech first, we’re a bank first. And I think that’s the change in order. Right. Obviously, I don’t know enough of the strategy now of what PayMaya is employing and I still love that brand, but GoTyme is approaching it very differently,” he says.

We’re a bank first. Like if you look at traditional banks, BDO, BPI, Union Bank, all of these guys, the savings rate is the savings rate. It’s simple, you don’t need to do anything. So that’s primarily why we developed it that way because we’re a bank first. The second one is there’s so much complexity in the world now. We firmly believe in three things for our savings product: it has to be simple, it has to be secure, and it has to be sustainable,” he adds.

“And we latch our interest rates firmly on the market rates. So it is sustainable just because of the base interest rates that our central bank is giving us. So just wanted to let everyone know that we’re here to stay. It is something that we are working on and the simplicity is part of the experience that we want to give. It will always be latched on primarily the market rates. It’s not a promotional rate that we’re giving.  That’s not our strategy. Our strategy is to provide a long-standing, stable, sustainable, secure rate for everyone,” he concludes.

Looking ahead

As GoTyme moves past their 1 millionth customer and looks into the future, Raymund knows their work is just beginning. He admits that their biggest challenge moving forward is keeping the same level of service that their current customers enjoy to the next million, or even the next 10 million.

“It’s about being able to continuously give this high level of service, high level of human touch, but not for the million that we have right now or about to have, but for the next 10 million that we’re looking to have in the next couple of years. That I think is our biggest mission. How do we solve this human-led experience, this premium-led experience, to the next 10 million? And we promise you guys that we’re going to put every stop, every advantage, everything that we can do to make that happen,” he promises.

In the short-term, customers can expect all the products that traditional banks are offering, but given with a human touch, no matter who you are or how much you have in your account.

“So I want to echo out just one more thing. You can expect us to be able to provide everyone the same experience as what Nate has mentioned, Abet has mentioned, and I’m mentioning what used to be enjoyed by just 5% of the population, the preferred bankers, right? Those people with 1 million in their accounts. You can expect us to deliver, or at least try to deliver as close to that preferred experience, not just for the 5%, but for everyone,” he says.

“And I think that’s going to be core to our mission for the next couple of years, is to be able to sustain that high level of service for everyone,” he adds.