Maya Uses Telco for Near-Zero CAC

The real advantage here is distribution, not branding. By making Maya usable even without mobile data on Smart and TNT, the company turns a telco billing relationship into a financial onboarding funnel for millions of prepaid users who already live on their phones but often avoid data spending for nonessential apps. That matters because Maya can start with simple wallet use, then layer in savings, credit, and remittance products at much lower acquisition cost than a standalone fintech.

• Prepaid users are especially valuable because they overlap with the most underpenetrated segment in finance. In the Philippines, many unbanked adults already have mobile phone and internet access, which means the main constraint is not connectivity alone, but getting a trusted low friction financial app into daily use.
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• This mirrors the playbook that helped GCash scale through Globe. Globe has long positioned GCash as part of its telecom ecosystem, and Maya is using the same structural advantage through PLDT and Smart, but with a stronger push into banking products like deposits and credit once users are inside the app.
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• Zero rated access is especially effective in a market where mobile internet is the primary way people get online and affordability still limits usage. Removing data charges makes Maya easier to check for balance, cash in, buy load, pay bills, and send money, which are the repeated actions that build habits and create underwriting data.
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The next step is turning telecom reach into financial depth. If Maya keeps converting prepaid wallet activity into deposits, merchant payments, and small credit lines, the Smart partnership will look less like a marketing channel and more like the base layer of a mass market digital bank built on top of mobile distribution.