MANILA - Digital bank GoTyme and online payments processing company PayMongo sealed a partnership for their first lending product, the ‘PayMongo Capital powered by GoTyme Bank.’

The new lending product offers up to P500,000 loans for small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) under PayMongo’s merchant ecosystem.

Eligible merchants can avail of the loan and get the amount within one business day, eliminating the long process and other paperwork in traditional loan applications.

No collaterals are required and officials said there are no hidden fees or other charges, just a flat rate which will depend on the loan amount and the status of the business as well.

“The opportunity that we are presenting to the SMEs is the ability to expand their business by carefully managing their funds, by carefully using capital as basis which they can grow their business successfully,” said PayMongo President & CEO Jojo Malolos.

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Only registered merchants under PayMongo - which number around 16,000 – can avail of the loan, but new merchants can register anytime. PayMongo’s system will then determine if one merchant is eligible for the loan and how much they can borrow.

Both PayMongo and GoTyme said the repayment of loan sets this program is what sets it apart from the rest. There is no fixed monthly payment. Payment will depend on the sales or revenue of the shop, which is determined by the PayMongo system since the merchant is registered with them.

“If they have a really good month, we’ll collect on a daily basis a higher amount, but if they have a bad month, they have a tough month, maybe seasonality, etc, we collect less,” said GoTyme President & CEO Nate Clarke.

Clarke and Malolos are confident the lending business will grow despite the high interest rates and inflation at present. They say the economy continues to grow, and this means entrepreneurs will expand their businesses.

“Millions of SMEs use this route to improve their business and successfully hire more people, give more products to the people, and expand their businesses. That will contribute to the GDP of the country,” said Malolos.

Clarke added that this product will benefit SMEs by preventing them from borrowing through informal means.

“They’re forced to go to loan sharks, informal lenders, digital lenders where the interest rates that are very high and kind of unfair practices. There is so much pent up demand for quality low cost credit," Clarke added.

GoTyme meanwhile said they now have 1.75 million users and is expecting to exceed its 2 million target for the year. This new lending product can boost that number with SMEs also possibly opening accounts with GoTyme.

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