Tonik, the first neobank in the Philippines now offers physical debit cards

Tonik, the first digital-only bank in the country launched last March 2021 is introducing its own debit cards. 

Tonik launches its physical debit cards in the Philippines

Debit cards with high-security features!

As a quick backgrounder, Tonik is the Philippines ' first neobank. But what is a neobank? According to Google, neobank is "a type of direct bank that operates exclusively online without traditional physical branch networks."

Tonik is the country's first private neobank operating under its own digital bank license by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). Today, they are launching debit cards for clients of their mobile app.

Users can order their Tonik physical debit cards through the app, and use these cards at any ATM or merchant that is part of Mastercard’s global network, which includes the majority of the ATMs and card-accepting merchants in the Philippines.

To make their physical debit cards highly secured, the following are its features:

1. No name and card number on the face of the card – this provides enhanced customer data privacy.

2. In-app controls to easily freeze and unfreeze the debit card for transactions.

3. Ability to manage limits of physical debit cards within the app.

4. 3D Secure and advanced antifraud, powered by Mastercard’s state-of-the-art security suite.

5. Savings protection - Stash and Time Deposit accounts are not directly linked to the account with the card, thus protecting the savings.

Tonik also encourages its customers to use their virtual cards for online transactions, instead of physical cards. This is because the virtual card is very quick and easy to replace in the unlikely event of the card being compromised.

Our physical debit cards are specifically designed to offer a highly secure payment experience. We hope this will help the Philippines continue on its rapid path of transition towards a cashless society and will help drive higher financial inclusion in the country, shared Greg Krasnov, Founder and CEO of Tonik.

Notably, Tonik debit cards offer the highest potential transaction limit in the market of up to PHP 450,000. However, Tonik encourages their clients to keep limits low to reduce risk, and only increase the limits for specific high-ticket transactions, and subsequently reducing them back to a lower level to keep their accounts well-protected.

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