In line with its thrust to boost the local agriculture sector, GCash has launched an initiative with Farm Konekt to give farmers and fishermen access to non-collateralized loans powered by its credit arm, Fuse Lending.
Farm Konekt is a community-based farm management enterprise platform that focuses on data-driven clustered production to upskill farmers and secure demand for their produce. Farmers as well as fisherfolks are offered clustering solutions that encompass consultancy, capacity building, and matching them with customers.
To boost the agricultural sector even further, the partnership will also give farmers and fishermen access to a wide range of essential business services in the GCash app, such as GSave and GInsure, to grow their savings and secure their finances.
The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Fuse Lending president and CEO Tony Isidro, GLoan product head Kevin Yu, Farm Konekt president and CEO John Gastanes, and Farm Konekt chief operations officer Stephen Costiniano.
“This partnership continues our relentless drive to serve Filipino farmers, aligning the GCash mission to serve every Filipino wherever they are. Farm Konekt’s connections with the farmer groups make them a good on-ground arm for us to better understand the needs of our farmers, who form one of the most important sectors of our economy,” said Isidro.
“Together with GCash, we look forward to building an inclusive ecosystem that ensures farmers and fisherfolks benefit from the fast-evolving digital economy. The majority of the farmers we transact with either go through remittance centers or use GCash. To formulate a robust scoring strategy, we have focused on our core strength, which is clustered acceleration, while entrusting GCash to excel in providing inclusive financing opportunities,” said Gastanes.
The agreement kicked off with a financial literacy session with farmers in Jaen, Nueva Ecija, where they were taught how to manage their finances with concepts like savings, insurance, and responsible borrowing.
The collaboration aims to make significant contributions to the Agritech industry, which is focused on data-driven farming and linkage to markets, with innovative fintech solutions that make essential financial services accessible to the unbanked majority.
