Financial app for women partners with First Shoshin for its marketplace and e-wallet features

Bixie, a financial empowerment app for women, partnered with FirstShoshin Holdings Corp. (FSHC) for the development of the upcoming features – scheduled to launch in Q3 2022.

FSHC, a technology investment firm, will assist Bixie in its plans to offer a payment wallet and a market for financial products on its platform through the APIs of the former (or the application programming interface, which allows applications to talk to each other) and blockchain -technology. Rosalia Gitau, co-founder and CEO of Pixie. The app also uses the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas FSHC Operators of Payment Systems license.

The partnership will allow Bixie to scale its offerings into a central access point for its users.

“Bixie’s UVP [unique value proposition] is that we can encourage women to start their investment journey by designing a unique investment journey that is tailored to the way women handle money,” said Ms. guitar Business in an email.

The current tools available in the Bixie app are: a gamified learning experience about investing, saving and budgeting; personalized calculations of one’s FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) number; and a goal setting feature.

Proponents of FIRE, a pension movement, are saving up to 70% of their annual income with the aim of retiring early and living on small withdrawals of their savings.

Ms. Gitau said the app also has partnerships with humanitarian organizations that help make the financial inclusion mission a reality. One is with the international non-profit Catholic Relief Services, which Bixie and Unionbank will partner with on April 19 to provide capital and investment to Philippine businesses.

According to the World Bank Group’s 2017 Global Findex report, more than 1 billion women still do not use or access the financial system.

Bixie’s user base grew to 5,000 within two months of its launch in November 2021, Ms. Gitau said in a subsequent WhatsApp call. It has a wider community of approximately 12,000 members who attend both offline and online meetings.

While the vast majority of users are Philippines, Pixie is a global company that has plans to expand into Asia and Africa, she added.

The FSSI-Bixie partnership came about through a mutual contact, Ms Gitau . told me Business† “There was a lot of alignment in our vision… They are strong on the technical side; we are strong in creating a community of women interested in finance.”

In a press statement, FSHC co-chairman Sally Ponce-Enrile said the company was “excited” to partner with Bixie and continue its mission to provide Filipino women with better financial management.

†[We] share the vision of banking of the unbanked majority. With our digital payment capabilities, we’re humbled to scale Pixie’s comprehensive app and be part of their movement to provide women with better ways to manage their money,” said Ms. Ponce-Enrile. — Patricia Mirasol