GoDigital’s OKTO targets micro, small enterprises

GODIGITAL CORP. is launching its new line of products called OKTO for cashless transactions and digitizing business processes, mainly targeting the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME).

“OKTO actually started when we were trying to create ’yung [those] better services namin for our customers. We’d found ourselves saying na [that] ‘Uy, okay ’to ha!,’ [This is okay!] so actually the OKTO name came from

‘Okay ’to ha,” it’s actually a play from that,” Roland Christian Y. Chua, Jr., chief technology officer of GoDigital, told

BusinessWorld in an interview after the media launch held in Quezon City on Feb. 28.

Mr. Chua said the company is targeting MSMEs as clients for its products and services.

“Our goal is really to help them in their digital transformation kasi [because] right now, if you look at the market, most of the available solutions are expensive, so what we want to do is offer a cost-effective solution for them,” Kriza Diane C. Sy, general manager of GoDigital, said during the launch.

As the MSMEs account for 99.6% of the total businesses in the Philippines, the company saw the need to develop a line of products that would help them digitize their business.

One of the products is OKTO Pay, a digital wallet which enables consumers and businesses to do cashless transactions. It also allows users to pay bills, buy load, and purchase e-pins. These can all be done with or without Internet connection and requires no maintaining balance.

Another is OKTO Loyalty, wherein companies can create rewards programs to foster customer loyalty.

The OKTO POS [point of sale] system also helps a business go digital in terms of inventory management, sales, and cash flow.

“We don’t want you to just have a solution na [that] your business would adjust just to be able to use our solution. We want it to be the other way around. We would be the one adjusting to your business needs, so that hindi masyadong malaki ’yung [there is not much] difference with your current process, so it’s really just about… digitizing your solution,” Mr. Chua said.

Mr. Chua noted some MSMEs don’t go for digitization because they think the cost would be too much. He said rates would depend on the requirement of the business since the solutions are customized.

Although there are similar products offered in the Philippines, Mr. Chua said his company is all about involving its customers more in terms of developing what suits their business best.

“For similar products in the Philippines, we’re not looking to be differentiated from them. We wanted to be looked as open for integration and we’re really open to working with them. We’re all about creating a better experience for our customers,” he noted.

GoDigital is a service-based financial technology start-up company established in 2016. It mainly focuses on developing solutions for business to help them integrate digital and financial technology in their operations. As of January 2019, OKTO has 120,000 users under OKTO Pay after it has opened a beta community to one of the biggest E-sports enabler in July 2018. —