MANILA, Philippines – Maya finally reached profitability three years since it entered the digital banking business, thanks to strong lending activity and continued growth in deposits and payments.

The Philippines’ leading digital bank ended the first quarter of the year with P43.6 billion in total deposits and P28 billion in loans disbursed. Its loans-to-deposit ratio grew to 51.1%, while cumulative disbursements have reached P120 million.

Meanwhile, its non-performing loan ratio — or the percentage of loans that are unlikely to get settled by debtors — stood below the digital banking industry average at 3.8%.

“We are proud to deliver strong growth across all our products and continued scaling of our integrated ecosystem, and achieving net income profitability in [the first quarter of 2025],” said Maya Group President and Maya Bank Co-Founder Shailesh Baidwan in a statement on Tuesday, April 22.

“This reflects the strength of our model — anchored on innovation, disciplined execution, and a clear mission to expand access to digital financial services for millions of Filipinos,” she added.

Without disclosing numbers, Maya said its net revenues have also grown over five times since its digital banking services was launched in 2022. (READ: Digital bank Maya expects to break even in 2024)

The company started out as a payments provider and is still the leading firm in the digital transactions business — processing over P1 trillion in payments for merchants in 2024. Maya noted that it has also made strides in its merchant business during the first quarter, with an integrated payments and banking platform that caters to all businesses, from large to small and micro enterprises.

However, the company still lags behind its biggest rival — GCash, the country’s first and only $5-billion unicorn. The Ayala-affiliated fintech giant continues to dominate the digital wallet space.

“It’s been disappointing for Maya,” telco tycoon Manny Pangilinan told reporters in August 2024. “I think we have to do something about their performance.”

GCash has been gearing up to go public via the Philippine Stock Exchange soon. But for Maya, talks of an initial public offering are off the table for now.

With the good first quarter showing, however, the company said it “is on track to accelerate ecosystem growth.” – Rappler.com