“Can a Philippine payments gateway become the full financial operating system—payments, wallets, lending, and FX—for fast-growing Southeast Asian SMBs?”
Founded in 2019 as a Philippine-focused payments API (the 'Stripe of the Philippines'), PayMongo quickly attracted Stripe itself as a lead Series A investor. Beyond payment acceptance, the company has systematically built a full financial operating system for Philippine SMBs: first launching a Wallet for instant settlement (2023), then PayMongo Capital—a lending marketplace connecting merchants to regulated partner lenders with revenue-based repayment—and now expanding into FX/cross-currency transfers and crypto wallet support. The trajectory is from payment gateway to embedded financial platform for Southeast Asian businesses.
Paymongo discloses Union Bank of the Philippines as its banking provider, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
Paymongo does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through Union Bank of the Philippines.
Paymongo processes payments through PayMongo Payments (self-operated).
Paymongo uses Lightnet, PDAX and Coins.ph for FX and cross-border payouts.
Paymongo's crypto products run on PDAX, Coins.ph and Lightnet.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 5 layers in Paymongo's stack: Payments / PSP (PayMongo Payments (self-operated)); Banking / BaaS (Union Bank of the Philippines); Lending (PayMongo Capital (revenue-based working capital)); FX & payouts (Lightnet, PDAX and Coins.ph); Crypto (PDAX, Coins.ph and Lightnet).
Paymongo was founded by Francis Plaza (CEO), Edwin Lacierda (COO), Jaime Hing III (CTO) and Luis Sia (Chief Commercial Officer / Chief Growth Officer) and is founded in 2019, headquartered in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, Manila, Philippines.
Paymongo has raised ~$46M in total (latest round: Series B, February 2022).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Paymongo and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.