FinTech NextPay Plans Bill Payments, Other MSME Services

FinTech startup NextPay plans to debuting more financial tools and services to help micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) this year, including a planned entry into cryptocurrency, GMA News wrote Sunday (March 20).

NextPay’s services can reportedly help out with things like handling payroll, sending invoices and paying bills, and the company is also looking into lending and corporate card services.

Per the report, this — along with an entry into crypto — will help the Philippines-based company try and keep up its growth from 2021.

“We will continue to make strides in achieving our goal of putting the power of big banks to growing businesses by constantly pursuing innovation,” NextPay co-founder and Head of Growth Artie Lopez told GMA News in an emailed statement.

NextPay has passed the 1 billion mark for transaction volume, and last year, it raised around $1.9 million, which was almost double the $1 million investment target for the year.

PYMNTS wrote early last year that NextPay had received $125,000 in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley startup accelerator. At the time, NextPay said it would be earmarking the funds to boost other funds it had for underbanked commercial enterprises across the Philippines.

Read more: Y Combinator Gives SMB Digital Banking Platform NextPay $125K Boost

The company also used the pre-seed funding to bolster its line of digital banking services for payments, credit and cash management. NextPay was rolled out in 2020, and was intended as an alternative to bank accounts for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Don Pansacola, CEO and co-founder, said the goal was “to empower smaller businesses with a spectrum of banking services that were previously unavailable to them because of the steep requirements and high fees that are typically aimed at larger, more developed companies that can afford them.”

Pansacola added that the company wanted to “help the Philippines bounce back,” allowing growing enterprises to reach more customers, maximize capital and generate more jobs and opportunities.