Philippine e-wallet PayMaya just raised a cool $210M and hit a $1.4B valuation last month. Yet, it seems like they're full of surprises — they've now just launched a digital bank, a whole new look for their app and a new name, Maya.

• Investors include SIG Venture Capital, EDBI, First Pacific Company, PLDT, KKR, Tencent and the International Finance Corporation.

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💁🏻‍♀️  Being just an e-wallet is so 2019

Maya's now an "all-in-one" money app, thanks to the release of their full-fledged digital bank.  

• Their OG e-wallet features are money transfer, mobile load top-up, and bill and merchant payments— which are all still in the app.

Now, you can quickly open a savings account online (with a 6% interest rate to boot), get a physical Maya card and also receive instant credit of up to Php 15,000 ($285).

• They also have B2B products like disbursements and banking for companies.

Did someone say crypto? Early last month, they launched a crypto feature, so you buy, sell and hold crypto in-app! Get this— you can start buying for as low as Php 1! (That's just $0.019 😱)

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✌🏼 Tale of two e-wallet strategies

With over 47M users, Maya's long been the country's second most popular e-wallet. The top dog is GCash, which has over 55M users and a valuation of $2B.

While Maya is building their financial muscle, a strategy made clear with the digital banking license, GCash is the opposite.

• GCash acts more like a gateway to (not a provider of) financial services — most of its other services like savings accounts, loans and investing are provided by its partners like banks and other institutions.

A rivalry that goes deep. They're not just competing e-wallets. PayMaya's parent company (Smart/PLDT) and GCash's (Globe) are the two biggest telcos in the Philippines.

• Down to the investors! Ant Group (Alibaba) invested in GCash, while Ant's rival, Tencent, invested in PayMaya.

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🔥 What's next?

With Maya's new features, new bank and new look, will it soon come out on top? We'll keep you in the loop! 😉