GLOBAL FRAUD prevention company SEON is looking to expand its customer base in the Philippines and service more traditional banks following its partnership with local tech integration firm Exist Software Labs.
“So for us, in the Philippines, the main thing in our group plan and expansion is that we want to grow the existing customer base that we already have. We want to replicate it and then also grow into the other sectors. We don’t have traditional bank customers yet,” SEON Senior Vice-President and General Manager for Asia-Pacific Troy Nyi Nyi told BusinessWorld in an interview last month.
The company sees growth opportunities in the Philippines amid high costs for digital finance infrastructure in the market, he said.
Mr. Nyi Nyi said this comes amid strong digital payments growth as well as the need for innovation as lower transfer fees and new regulations require stronger fraud management systems.
“When we try to prioritize the markets we’re going to, for us, we are fully 100% digital. So, whenever there’s a digital ongoing transition happening, risk action happening, that’s where we act and do the best we can as well,” he said.
The company is also looking to service different use cases as needed by digital banks and firms with digital lending, remittance, and payments businesses amid new regulations and laws such as the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act.
“That’s why we are here, to comply with anything that regulatory BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) requires — at the same time, making sure that banks can stay on the trusted service side of the table of defense, to be able to offer more services and new services,” Mr. Nyi Nyi said.
It also wants to expand into other sectors such as commerce to add to its existing customer base of digital banks, digital lenders, as well as gaming and betting and IT employers.
“This is one of the reasons that we partnered with Exist, to expand our customer base in the Philippines, to go into more commerce and more digital banks,” he said.
While SEON has a strong partner base with financial technology players such as Salmon Bank (Rural Bank), Inc. and Home Credit Philippines, he said the company’s partnership with Exist will help them better service traditional banks.
“It’s 100% cloud-based. That also gives us a very good sideway into traditional banks through the Exist partnership. Exist is the one within the country with their own data set, so we are able to work with them to offer our service to the main customer in the traditional banks.”
SEON is also looking to expand into serving Philippine remittance firms’ use cases as part of a regional push, with their partnership with Exist also helping them get customers in the sector.
“We want to pay more attention to remittances. Remittances is another one that we do very well. We work with those very closely as well. And in the Philippines, remittances is obviously a very big opportunity. Exist already has a few customers on the project that they are looking into. So, for us, it’s a no-brainer,” Mr. Nyi Nyi said.
He said they already have more than 80 customers in remittances across the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Australia, Japan, Korea, China, and Hong Kong.
“It’s another area that we are looking into because we see that this is an area that a lot of remittance players are neglecting previously, or not realizing there’s a lot of losses [from fraud].” — Aaron Michael C. Sy