Maya Bank

What Maya Bank is, in 2026

Maya Bank, Inc. is a Philippine-incorporated digital bank operating under one of the six BSP Digital Bank Licences issued by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas under Circular 1105 of late 2020. The Circular 1105 framework established the digital-bank licence as a fifth bank category in the Philippines, sitting alongside universal, commercial, thrift, and rural banks. BSP authorised exactly six digital-bank licensees in the 2020–2021 window — Tonik, Maya Bank, UnionDigital, Overseas Filipino Bank, UNO Digital Bank, and GoTyme — and then closed the application window to new entrants. The cap remains in place. Maya Bank received its licence in 2021 and commercially launched in 2022.

The structural fact most often misunderstood about Maya: Maya is two regulated entities, not one. Maya Philippines, Inc. holds a BSP Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) licence and operates the Maya wallet — the consumer super-app that started as PayMaya in 2015 and rebranded to Maya in 2022. Maya Bank, Inc. is a separate Philippine corporation holding the BSP Digital Bank Licence and is the entity that takes deposits, pays Maya Savings interest, and is PDIC-insured. Inside the app the two surfaces look unified — open Maya, see balances, move money — but the regulatory walls between them are real. Wallet balances are safeguarded under BSP's e-money rules. Bank balances are PDIC-insured to PHP 500,000. Crypto balances under Maya Crypto sit under a third licence (a VASP authorisation) and are not deposit-insured at all.

The corporate parent is Voyager Innovations Holdings, Inc., a Philippine fintech group whose largest shareholder is PLDT, Inc. — the listed Philippine telecoms incumbent that also owns Smart Communications, the largest mobile-network operator in the country. Around the PLDT majority sits institutional equity from KKR (the US private-equity house), Tencent (the Chinese internet conglomerate), and the IFC (the World Bank Group's private-sector arm). Funding rounds across 2021–2022 valued the Voyager group at well over USD 1 billion in publicly-reported press, which makes Maya the highest-capitalised entity in the BSP digital-bank cohort by a comfortable margin. The PLDT/Smart distribution backbone is the structural moat — Maya is the only PH digital bank with native access to the country's largest mobile customer base, retail agent network, and telecoms billing relationships.

At-a-glance scorecard

Use Maya Bank if you are a Philippine resident who lives inside the Maya wallet ecosystem and wants the chartered-bank deposit product attached to the same app — Maya Savings sweeps cleanly between wallet and bank, the QR-payment surface is the most-accepted in PH (Maya QR sits on a large share of merchant terminals), and the consumer payments + savings + bank-account combination is the single deepest super-app surface in Philippine retail finance. The PDIC cover on the bank side is the same direct PHP 500,000 mechanic that applies to Tonik or any other DBL holder, so the safety story is not a compromise.

Avoid Maya Bank if you want a debit card for international card spend (Maya is domestic-only and PHP-only — pair with Wise for cross-border), if your primary need is the highest realistic APY on PHP savings as a standalone product (Tonik's Stash typically prices higher on the longest ladders), if you want a clear single-licence relationship without the wallet/bank/crypto licence stack to disentangle, or if your typical balance materially exceeds PHP 500,000 (the PDIC ceiling caps cover at roughly USD 8,800 — split across multiple PDIC banks above that). The multi-licence stack is a feature for ecosystem users and a complication for depositors who want to know exactly which entity holds which peso.

The single sentence on safety: Maya Bank is BSP-supervised under one of six Digital Bank Licences, PDIC-insured to PHP 500,000 on the chartered-bank entity only — wallet balances and crypto balances live under different licences with different recovery mechanics, so confirm which Maya surface holds your money.

Bank structure and PDIC cover

Maya Bank, Inc. is the Philippine-incorporated chartered bank that BSP licenses, PDIC insures, and supervises prudentially. It operates under one of six BSP Digital Bank Licences issued under Circular 1105 (Series of 2020) — the most structurally exclusive licence class in Philippine neobanking. BSP has closed the framework to new applicants since 2021 and the six-licensee cap has not been lifted. Maya Bank, Inc. appears in the BSP published list of supervised financial institutions and files regulatory returns on the same supervisory cadence as any other BSP-supervised bank in its size class.

PDIC membership is automatic for BSP-licensed banks. The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation covers up to PHP 500,000 per depositor per institution, applied across all Maya Bank deposit balances combined: the main Maya Savings balance and any time-deposit ladders are aggregated into the same PHP 500,000 envelope. PDIC cover does NOT extend to balances held in the Maya wallet (those sit under the EMI licence held by Maya Philippines, Inc. and are safeguarded under BSP's e-money rules — segregated, but not deposit-insured), and it does NOT extend to Maya Crypto holdings (those sit under a separate VASP licence and are not deposit-bearing at all). At a USD/PHP rate near 57 the PHP 500,000 ceiling is approximately USD 8,800 — a materially smaller absolute ceiling than the US FDIC's $250,000, the UK FSCS's £85,000, or the EU DGSD's €100,000. Depositors with balances meaningfully above PHP 500,000 should layer cover by splitting funds across two or more PDIC-member institutions.

The corporate stack is worth tracing because mainstream press treats Maya as a single brand and the regulatory walls disappear in the coverage. Voyager Innovations Holdings, Inc. is the Philippine parent. Below it sit two separately licensed operating entities: Maya Philippines, Inc. (the EMI, running the wallet) and Maya Bank, Inc. (the DBL holder, running the chartered bank). PLDT, Inc. is the largest equity holder in Voyager; KKR, Tencent, and the IFC are institutional minority investors named in publicly reported funding rounds. We treat the cap-table specifics as journalist-reported rather than primary-disclosure data — Voyager is a private group and does not publish audited investor records — but the general shape and the PLDT majority are consistently confirmed across PLDT's own listed-company investor relations disclosures, Reuters, Inquirer, and Tech in Asia coverage.

The fee schedule

Maya Bank's published pricing, captured from maya.ph on 30 April 2026 and cross-checked against in-app deposit-account terms, is competitive but not the cheapest in the BSP digital-bank cohort. The bank earns through interchange on debit-card use, the spread between Maya Savings deposit rates and Maya Credit lending rates, the inter-entity flow between wallet and bank (where economics are concentrated under the EMI), and time-deposit term economics — there is no monthly subscription fee on the consumer accounts.

• Maya Bank account monthly fee: PHP 0. No minimum balance required; the account remains open with a zero balance.
• Maya Savings: No fee to open or hold a Maya Savings balance. Earns tiered APY that has historically reached up to 6.0% on the headline tiers, with promotional rates above the headline around campaign windows. The schedule is variable; verify in-app or on maya.ph before funding.
• Maya Time Deposits: No fee. Terms typically run 30 / 60 / 90 / 180 / 365 days, with rates published per term inside the app; PDIC cover is included inside the same PHP 500,000 ceiling shared with Maya Savings.
• InstaPay and PESONet outbound transfers: Free for a monthly allowance, then a per-transfer fee applies — Maya has historically capped the free allowance at a relatively generous level for power users but verify the current cap before relying on it.
• Wallet ↔ bank sweeps: Free between your own Maya Wallet and Maya Bank surfaces. Move money from one entity to the other inside the app at no charge — the sweep is the operational mechanic that activates PDIC cover on a previously-wallet balance.
• ATM withdrawals: Free at Maya Bank–network ATMs (limited footprint); a per-transaction fee applies at out-of-network BancNet ATMs. Cash-out via 7-Eleven CLiQQ partner is the most common out-of-network channel and is fee-bearing.
• Maya Credit: Interest charged on personal-loan balances; APR varies by product and risk grade. Read the loan disclosure before drawing — Maya Credit APRs are competitive against Philippine credit-card and BNPL rates but are not cheap in absolute terms.
• Maya Crypto: Trading-fee spread on buy/sell; not a deposit and not PDIC-covered.

Two pricing realities to internalise. Maya Savings APY is variable, and the headline rate at sign-up is not contractually locked for the life of the balance — Maya Bank can and has moved the schedule. And the wallet/bank distinction matters for cover: a balance you keep in the wallet is NOT PDIC-insured, regardless of how the in-app UI displays it, until you sweep it to the Maya Bank surface.

Hands-on notes

These notes reflect editorial product use across late 2025 and early 2026, including a fresh Maya account opened for this review on a Manila SIM and Philippine PRC professional licence submitted as the KYC document. The Maya app surface is unified — wallet and bank live under one login — but the under-the-hood regulatory entities split as soon as you touch a deposit-bearing surface.

Sign-up flow

Onboarding is app-only — there is no kiosk channel and no in-branch sign-up. The first Maya application opens the wallet (the EMI surface) under Maya Philippines, Inc.; activating Maya Savings or a Maya Bank deposit account triggers a second consent step that explicitly references Maya Bank, Inc. as the deposit-taking entity. Selfie + ID-photo capture happens inside the app. Standard KYC tier on the basic flow cleared in well under fifteen minutes on a clean ID; the bank-side activation takes additional minutes for the explicit DBL consent and the bank-side KYC confirmations.

Wallet ↔ bank sweep

The defining UX moment in Maya is the wallet/bank sweep — the in-app step that moves money from the Maya Philippines, Inc. EMI wallet into the Maya Bank, Inc. deposit account, activating PDIC cover. The sweep is a one-tap step and the funds appear in the bank-side balance instantly, but it is the user's responsibility to perform it: a wallet balance you forget to sweep is not PDIC-insured. The reverse direction (bank → wallet) is also instant and fee-free, but the same rule applies on the way back — funds parked in the wallet for a payments use-case do not get silent deposit insurance.

Card arrival

The physical Maya card is couriered after account opening; arrival within Metro Manila ran roughly five to seven business days in our test, with provincial deliveries taking longer. The card is a domestic Visa-rail debit and is intended for Philippine-domestic point-of-sale and ATM use. The virtual-card surface inside the app is usable immediately for online Philippine merchant transactions, so the physical wait does not block onboarding from completing.

QR acceptance

Maya QR is one of the most widely-accepted merchant QR rails in the Philippines — visible alongside GCash QR on a substantial share of merchant counters in Metro Manila and the regional cities. From a depositor's standpoint the QR rails sit on the wallet (EMI) side, not the bank (DBL) side, so spending via Maya QR draws from the wallet balance unless you have configured the in-app behaviour to draw from Maya Bank Savings. This is a wallet-bank linkage choice the user can configure, but the default in our 2026 testing was wallet-first.

Customer support

In-app chat is the primary channel; Maya also publishes a Philippine hotline and a help-centre web surface. Chat first-response times during business hours ran roughly fifteen to forty minutes in our 2026 testing for routine queries; weekends and holidays were materially slower. The PLDT/Smart distribution backbone shows up in support — escalation paths into telecoms-billing and SIM-related disputes are tighter than at standalone digital banks, an advantage of the parent group's existing infrastructure.

Plan and tier comparison

Maya does not run a tiered subscription lineup in the Revolut or N26 sense. The product structure is a single fee-free banking surface (Maya Bank account + Maya Savings) plus the wallet sleeves (Maya wallet, Maya Crypto, Maya Stocks) under separate licences. The differentiation is in product type, not in monthly subscription fees.

• Maya Bank account (free): the chartered-bank surface. PHP-only deposit account with InstaPay and PESONet rails, virtual and physical Visa debit card, and full PDIC cover within the shared PHP 500,000 ceiling.
• Maya Savings (free, variable APY): the high-yield deposit product running off Maya Bank, Inc. Tiered APY by balance and by qualifying conditions (transaction frequency, salary deposit, app-task completion). Headline rates have historically reached up to 6.0% APY on the core tiers, with promotional rates above. Verify the current schedule on maya.ph or in-app.
• Maya Time Deposit (free, fixed term): standard fixed-term PHP deposit at terms typically running 30 / 60 / 90 / 180 / 365 days. Rate is locked at booking; PDIC cover sits inside the shared PHP 500,000 ceiling.
• Maya Credit (consumer credit, separate): personal-loan product offered out of the chartered bank. APR and term vary by product and risk grade.
• Maya Crypto (separate licence, NOT PDIC): in-app cryptoasset trading surface under a Voyager-group VASP authorisation. Not a deposit, not chartered banking, not PDIC-insured — treat as VASP custody, not banking.
• Maya Stocks (separate licence, NOT PDIC): equities surface offered through a regulated broker integration. Custody and recovery mechanic differ from the bank — read the broker disclosure before funding.

Caveats and watchouts

The wallet is not the bank. The single most common reader misread on Maya is to assume that any balance inside the Maya app is PDIC-insured. It is not. Only balances held at Maya Bank, Inc. — the chartered-bank entity — sit under PDIC cover. Wallet balances held at Maya Philippines, Inc. sit under the EMI licence and are safeguarded by segregation, not deposit insurance. The in-app UI does signal which surface a balance sits on, but the discipline is on the user to read it. If you want PDIC cover, sweep the balance into Maya Savings.

Maya Crypto is NOT PDIC-insured. Maya Crypto operates under a separate VASP licence and is not deposit-bearing. Cryptoasset balances are subject to market price volatility, custodial risk at the VASP entity, and a recovery mechanic that differs entirely from the PDIC failed-bank claim path. The fact that Maya Crypto sits inside the same app does not extend deposit insurance — treat crypto balances inside Maya the way you would treat balances at any unregulated VASP custodian.

Maya Savings APY is variable and conditional. Headline rates up to 6.0% sit behind a tier ladder that includes balance breakpoints and qualifying activity (transaction frequency, salary deposit, app-task streaks). The schedule has been repriced multiple times since launch — both up around campaign windows and down as the user count grew and the subsidy needed tapering. The rate that applied at sign-up is not the rate that applies six months later. Treat the deposit-account agreement at funding as the binding rate, and re-check the tier schedule on maya.ph on each major top-up.

Domestic-only, PHP-only. Maya Bank does not support international card spend, has no multi-currency wallet on the bank side, and does not issue an international debit product. The Visa rails on the physical card are designed for Philippine merchant and ATM use; foreign-card behaviour is not the supported path. For travel or cross-border spending, pair Maya with Wise (which is licensed to operate in the Philippines) or use the Maya wallet's outbound remittance rails, where available.

The PDIC ceiling is small in dollar terms. PHP 500,000 is roughly USD 8,800 at current rates — meaningful for the average Philippine retail saver, but a constraint for affluent depositors and OFWs whose savings are denominated in foreign currency. Above PHP 500,000 the cover does not scale at the same bank; layer cover by splitting across multiple PDIC-member institutions.

Multi-licence stack increases reading load. The wallet (EMI), the bank (DBL), and the crypto sleeve (VASP) live under three separate authorisations. For ecosystem users this is a feature — payments, deposits, and crypto under one app. For a depositor who wants a clean single-licence relationship, this is a complication. Read which Maya surface holds your money, not just the brand on the app icon.

Maya vs the obvious alternatives

Maya Bank vs Tonik. Both hold BSP digital-bank licences from the same 2020–2021 cohort and both are PDIC-insured to PHP 500,000. Tonik is a savings-first standalone — Stash tiered APY has historically priced higher than Maya Savings on the longest ladders. Maya pairs the bank with the Maya wallet ecosystem, giving it a payments and merchant-acceptance surface Tonik does not have. Pick Tonik for the headline-savings ceiling on a clean single-licence bank; pick Maya for the wallet-plus-bank ecosystem and the deeper PH consumer surface. Read our full Tonik review for the licence and corporate structure detail.

Maya Bank vs GoTyme. GoTyme operates under a BSP universal-bank licence (converted from a rural-bank charter), not the digital-bank licence class — a broader product authority than Maya's DBL. GoTyme's structural moat is the Robinsons Retail in-mall card-issuance kiosks; Maya's structural moat is the PLDT/Smart-backed wallet ecosystem. Pick GoTyme for in-mall card distribution and the universal-bank breadth; pick Maya for the super-app and the wallet-bank pairing. Read our GoTyme review for the licence-class distinction.

Maya Bank vs UnionDigital. UnionDigital sits under the UnionBank parent — the UnionBank-affiliated DBL holder, sharing the parent's existing customer base and treasury resources. UnionDigital is structurally less concentration-risky than a standalone (the parent bank's balance sheet is large and diversified) but the consumer product surface is less aggressive on yield and the ecosystem story is narrower than Maya's super-app. Pick UnionDigital for the parent-bank backstop and an existing UnionBank relationship; pick Maya for the wallet-plus-bank distribution and the higher-conviction consumer-app surface.

Frequently asked questions

Is Maya Bank a real bank?

Yes. Maya Bank, Inc. holds one of six BSP Digital Bank Licences, supervised under BSP Circular 1105 (2020). It is a chartered bank, separate from Maya Philippines, Inc. (the EMI running the wallet).

Is Maya Bank PDIC-insured?

Yes — to PHP 500,000 per depositor per institution, applied across all Maya Bank balances combined. Wallet balances held under the EMI licence and Maya Crypto held under the VASP licence are NOT PDIC-insured.

What is the difference between Maya Bank and Maya Wallet?

Two regulated entities, one app. Maya Philippines, Inc. holds the BSP Electronic Money Issuer licence and runs the wallet. Maya Bank, Inc. holds the BSP Digital Bank Licence and runs the deposit-bearing account, including Maya Savings.

Is Maya Crypto PDIC-insured?

No. Maya Crypto operates under a separate VASP licence; cryptoasset balances are not deposits and are not PDIC-covered.

What is the current Maya Savings APY?

Variable; headline rates have historically reached up to 6.0% on tiered ladders with promotional rates above around campaign windows. Verify the current tier schedule on maya.ph or in-app before funding.

Can I open a Maya Bank account from outside the Philippines?

No. Maya Bank onboarding requires a Philippine government-issued ID, address, and mobile number. Overseas Filipino Workers with current Philippine documentation can typically still open; non-Filipino expatriates without local ID cannot.

Who owns Maya Bank?

Voyager Innovations Holdings, Inc. — majority-controlled by PLDT, with KKR, Tencent, and the IFC as named institutional minority investors.

Who Maya Bank is for

Use Maya Bank if you are a Philippine resident who lives inside the Maya wallet ecosystem and wants the chartered-bank deposit product attached to the same app — payments, savings, credit, and bank account under one super-app surface, with PDIC cover on the deposit side. The PLDT/Smart distribution backbone, the Maya QR merchant acceptance, and the wallet-bank sweep UX make this the deepest consumer-facing super-app surface in Philippine retail finance.

Use a different Philippine neobank if your primary need is something else. Tonik is the standalone savings-first BSP-DBL with the headline-rate ceiling on Stash. GoTyme is the universal-bank charter with Robinsons in-mall kiosks. UnionDigital is the parent-bank-backed DBL inside the UnionBank group. For Filipino depositors above the PHP 500,000 ceiling, the correct answer is layered cover across two or more PDIC banks rather than concentration at a single institution.

References and sources

All facts in this review are sourced from primary documents — BSP regulatory disclosures, the PDIC published cover schedule, Maya's own product pages and deposit-account terms, PLDT-listed investor relations filings, and journalist coverage in regional outlets — captured on 30 April 2026. Where APY tiers, transfer allowances, or fee schedules may change, verify with Maya's current published terms before opening or funding an account.

• Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas — Circular 1105 establishing the digital-bank framework, and the BSP supervised-institutions registry: bsp.gov.ph.
• Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation — published deposit-cover ceiling and member-bank lookup: pdic.gov.ph.
• Maya — product pages, fee schedule, deposit-account terms, and the Maya Savings tier disclosure: maya.ph.
• PLDT Investor Relations — listed-company disclosures referencing the Voyager Innovations group, including financial reporting and shareholding context: pldt.com.
• Voyager Innovations — corporate press archive on funding rounds and the Maya Bank / Maya wallet structure: voyagerinnovation.com.
• Reuters — coverage of the Voyager funding rounds, KKR / Tencent / IFC investment, and the Maya Bank licence: reuters.com.
• Inquirer — Philippine business reporting on BSP digital-bank framework launch and Maya product context: business.inquirer.net.
• Tech in Asia — regional coverage of the BSP digital-bank cohort, Voyager funding history, and Maya competitive context: techinasia.com.
• Rappler — Philippine reporting on Maya product launches and ecosystem partnerships: rappler.com.