Tonik has an installment product – just don’t call it BNPL

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Is having a credit card good or bad? Well, it depends. If you’re using it to purchase things you don’t need and can’t afford, then it’s probably not beneficial. But if you can pay the balance each month and you’re milking your card for points and other rewards, then it’s probably useful.

But to someone like my grandmother, who has seen friends her age slip into debt by swiping plastic, the mere mention of “credit card” gives her the heebie-jeebies.

Is the term “buy now, pay later” starting to go into that direction? Perhaps, but we’re still in BNPL’s early days. BNPL firms – and many of its millennial and Gen Z users – would argue that the service lets people manage their money better, has more transparent fees than credit cards, and even enables some to enter the financial system for the first time.

But there’s at least one person who openly dislikes that term: Greg Krasnov, founder and CEO of Philippine digital bank Tonik. In this week’s Big Story, my colleague Melissa Goh expounds on her conversation with Krasnov on a wide range of topics, such as his gripes with BNPL despite offering a similar “sales finance” product, as well as crypto and the digibank scene in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, in this week’s Hot Take, I examine Indonesia’s maturing insurtech space as it welcomes its first full-stack startup.

— Putra

THE BIG STORY

Tonik CEO on BNPL: ‘I prefer to call it sales finance’

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Tonik Digital Bank may offer installment shopping loans too, but it’s doing it the good ol’ “bank way.”

THE HOT TAKE

Crunch time for Indonesia’s insurtech startups?

PasarPolis’ COO Michael Saputra (left) and CEO Cleosent Randing / Photo credit: PasarPolis

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