Arthur Fuentes

Article (news)

Boardroom Tea

Salve Ibaňez

ABS-CBN News

<p>The digital banking revolution has a new sheriff in town—and he’s got soap on his hands and Bangladesh in his heart.</p><p>In Philippine banking circles, UnionDigital Bank’s astronomical non-performing loan ratios following their 2024 lending blitz is the industry’s worst-kept secret. What’s flying under the radar? The turnaround story being orchestrated by the Aboitiz Group’s handpicked savior—a man whose journey from soap trucks to CEO suites reads like a masterclass in Filipino hustle.</p><div><strong>Meet Bong Mojica: The Grameen Whisperer</strong></div><p>Danilo “Bong” Mojica isn’t your typical banker. This telco veteran’s origin story begins with him driving a truck, peddling soap to sari-sari store owners across the provinces—learning the Filipino grassroots economy one transaction at a time. But here’s where it gets interesting: somewhere between soap sales and corner stores, Mojica fell hard for Grameen banking during his stint in Bangladesh.</p><p>That love affair with Muhammad Yunus’s revolutionary microcredit model wasn’t just academic curiosity. Mojica was instrumental in pioneering the Philippines’ earliest mobile money solutions—visionary ideas that were brutally ahead of their time and fizzled out before the market was ready.</p><p>Now, as UnionDigital’s CEO since August 2024, he’s weaponizing every lesson learned: the street-level insights from his soap-truck days, the community-first philosophy absorbed in Bangladesh, and even his doctoral dissertation on nanays and sari-sari stores. The result? A community-centered banking strategy that’s rewriting the digital banking playbook.</p><p>“Kaya Mo” isn’t just a slogan—it’s a declaration of war against financial exclusion.</p><p>The campaign tells Filipinos what they need to hear: forget the political dependency, forget the handouts. With the right diskarte and relentless work ethic, you can build your own financial future. It’s populist messaging with substance—exactly what you’d expect from someone who understands both village economics and institutional finance.</p><div><strong>The Aboitiz Gamble</strong></div><p>Will the Aboitiz Group’s bet on Mojica pay off? Boardroom Tea insiders say it may be too soon to tell. His first-year anniversary hits this August, and whispers suggest UnionDigital’s NPL ratio is about to dramatically improve as the bank pivots to treating itself as a fresh start—smaller portfolio, cleaner books, sharper focus.</p><p>The inside joke making rounds? Bong is the original Tide brand architect, while former UnionBank President Edwin Bautista built his reputation on Safeguard. The humor isn’t lost on anyone who knows these two: the cleaning products&#x27; friendly rivalry has evolved into a bid for banking supremacy—eventually on the same side.</p><p>Watch how Mojica explains the UD’s battle with NPLs and the ongoing turnaround story for first time on ANC.</p><div><br/></div><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1751505960947doubledragon.jpg" style="width:550px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/></div><div><strong>First Filipino Nasdaq Darling</strong></div><p>History was made in Times Square, and according to DoubleDragon independent director Vince Perez, Injap Sia couldn’t contain his excitement. Hotel101 Global’s NASDAQ debut represents more than just another IPO—it’s validation of a radically disruptive hospitality model that’s scaling from BGC to Niseko, Madrid to Saudi Arabia, with ambitious global expansion plans.</p><p>But this moment transcended business metrics. For the first time, a Philippine company’s flag flew proudly outside the NASDAQ building—a symbolic victory that resonated far beyond the trading floor. Perez witnessed firsthand the emotional weight of this milestone, seeing DoubleDragon (the Philippine powerhouse founded by two dragons: Injap Sia and Jollibee’s Tony Tan Caktiong) celebrate its subsidiary’s historic achievement.</p><p>Hotel101 Global, led by CEO Hannah Yulo, isn’t just another hotel chain. It’s a property-tech hospitality platform engineered for lightning-fast international scalability. The NASDAQ listing provides the capital firepower needed to execute their audacious vision: conquering markets from the US to Japan, Spain to Saudi Arabia.</p><p>The dragon’s roar just got louder on Wall Street.</p><p>-----</p><div><em>Boardroom Tea comes out every Wednesday</em></div><div><em>ERRATUM: An earlier version of this article mentioned that Bong Mojica marketed Mr. Clean, but the brand was actually Tide. We regret the error.</em></div>

<p>A veteran of detergent sales tries to clean away the bad loans from a digital bank, and a Pinoy hotel brand breaks into the prestigious Nasdaq.</p>

A veteran of detergent sales tries to clean away the bad loans from a digital bank, and a Pinoy hotel brand breaks into the prestigious Nasdaq.

Boardroom Tea: Pinoy firm breaks into Nasdaq; Detergent veteran scrubs away bad loans

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Boardroom Tea: Pinoy firm breaks into Nasdaq; Detergent veteran scrubs away bad loans

Salve Ibaňez,

ABS-CBN News

Published Jul 02, 2025 10:00 PM PHT

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Updated Jul 09, 2025 12:55 PM PHT

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ABSNews

Boardroom Team

business chatter

DoubleDragon

Injap Sia

Tony Tan Caktiong

Nasdaq

Aboitiz

UnionDigital

digital bank

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