Paymentology, PayMongo, and Mastercard have launched a virtual prepaid business payment card targeting small and medium-sized enterprises in the Philippines.
The card, issued under the Mastercard network, is accessible through the existing PayMongo workflow and can be activated in under five minutes. Businesses can set spending limits, issue separate cards for individual teams or purposes, track transactions in real time, and enable employees or freelancers to access funds without requiring personal bank accounts.
Addressing a structural gap in SME financial access
According to the official press release, the launch targets a segment that accounts for the majority of businesses in the Philippines. Philippine SMEs employ 63% of the workforce and contribute up to 40% of GDP, yet have historically had limited access to business-grade financial tools. The new card is positioned as a practical response to that structural gap, offering capabilities previously concentrated among larger enterprises.
In addition, the initiative also aligns with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas' Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap, which set a target of 50% digital retail transactions by 2023 — a policy backdrop that has shaped the broader push towards financial inclusion and digital payment adoption across the country.
Every card issued through the programme runs on Paymentology's issuer-processing infrastructure, with fraud monitoring, compliance standards, and transaction security provided jointly by Paymentology and Mastercard. The PayMongo platform holds PCI-DSS 4.0 and SOC 2 Type 2 certifications, meeting recognised industry standards for data security and operational controls.
Infrastructure and scale
Paymentology's role as the issuer processor underpins the technical delivery of the product. Its globally scalable infrastructure supports the card issuance and processing layer, while Mastercard's network handles transaction routing. This architecture is designed to support growth as uptake among Philippine SMEs expands.
Jojo Malolos, CEO at PayMongo, noted that the product is intended to give business owners a financial tool with built-in spending discipline, one that provides visibility into business expenditure as it occurs.
Moreover, Minh Ha Truong, Head of Growth APAC at Paymentology, highlighted that while small businesses represent the majority of employment in the Philippines, access to card-based financial services in that segment has remained limited. The partnership is presented as a means of extending modern payment infrastructure to businesses that have traditionally operated outside formal business banking.
The virtual prepaid card forms part of PayMongo's broader strategy to develop a suite of card-based financial products for Philippine businesses, with further product additions indicated for future phases.
