In the past two years, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) has made a strategic shift in its retail operations, creating a new division focused on niche markets and payments. The division, established in February 2024, centres on programmes targeting employees, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and cooperatives, marking a clear departure from traditional, product-led approaches. “If you are a big corporate client, all the banks would be running to you already,” said Roel Lustado, first vice president and head of the niche markets and payments ecosystem division at RCBC. “But employees and smaller groups do not get the same focus.” Rather than chase scale, RCBC aims to design programmes that bundle various services around a single, strong relationship. ACCESS, the first programme based on this logic, reframes payroll as a conduit for deeper engagement. “We wanted to do more than just be the conduit for payment,” said Richard Lim, executive vice president and head of the retail banking group at RCBC. Roel Lustado, First Vice President and Head of Niche Markets and Payments Ecosystem Division at RCBC Richard Lim, Executive Vice President and Head of Retail Banking Group at RCBC ACCESS is structured around four key pillars: savings, protection, borrowing and investment, all designed to address the essential financial needs of employees. By focusing on inclusivity, the programme serves employees across businesses of all sizes, even those with as few as five employees. This accessibility aligns with RCBC’s commitment to financial inclusion, ensuring that even employees in smaller businesses have access to essential financial services. A defining feature of ACCESS is its automatic enrolment process. Employees are automatically enrolled in products like salary loans, credit cards and personal accident insurance through the RCBC Pulz app. Once enrolled, employees are notified of eligible financial products based on their payroll data, removing the need for manual applications and streamlining the user experience. The programme balances financial inclusion with risk control by pre-screening eligibility, ensuring loan limits are tied to income. Repayments are automatically deducted from salaries, reducing the risk of missed payments and helping employees manage their financial obligations. A key service, Payday Now, offers zero-interest salary advances to employees, helping them avoid high-interest loans from informal lenders. Lim noted, “Employees fall victim to loan sharks. This is a good tool to keep them away from that.” Since its launch, ACCESS has grown rapidly, with monthly payroll account openings rising from 7,000 to 27,000. Payroll-linked accounts now total nearly 700,000, and salary loans and advances have reached PHP 5 billion ($91 million). ACCESS also contributes 30-40% of RCBC’s retail credit card issuance, underscoring its success in integrating payroll-linked products. Hexagon Club engages emerging affluent customers The Hexagon Club is RCBC's dedicated programme for the emerging affluent and affluent market. This important segment, which includes the middle and upper tiers of the middle-class population in the Philippines, is often underserved by financial institutions primarily focused on ultra-high-net-worth clients. Emmanuel Valdes, head of the emerging affluent & affluent market segment division at RCBC said, “As a challenger bank, we want to attract more emerging affluent and affluent customers to RCBC. Our goal is to build strong relationships with these customers early on, and support them every step of the way as their financial partner.” Central to the Hexagon Club is an affluence framework scoring model developed by the bank’s Data Science and Analytics Group. This model analyses data points, including demographics, inferred profile, transaction history, income patterns and spending behaviour to identify customers who are on track to build wealth, even if their current account balances are modest. This proactive approach allows RCBC to engage its targeted emerging affluent and affluent individuals early on, ensuring they receive the necessary support as they progress to higher financial tiers. Once identified, customers receive personalised services like dedicated relationship managers, priority banking queues, and other special banking perks. As their financial situation improves, they are gradually introduced to more exclusive benefits, including preferential loan rates and lifestyle privileges. By 2025, Hexagon Club had attracted more than 500,000 members, making up around 20% of RCBC’s retail customer base, while contributing substantially to the overall deposits of the bank. On average, Hexagon Club members' product holdings have increased to 3.4, compared with just 1.2 for standard retail customers, reflecting deeper engagement with RCBC’s offerings. Kabalikat scales relationship banking through revenue sharing with cooperatives and SMEs Launched in April 2024, Kabalikat introduces a revenue-sharing model that treats cooperatives as business partners rather than passive clients. Victoria P. Victoria, first vice president niche and special markets department at RCBC, noted, “Kabalikat is very interesting, because that’s how granular we are now going.” Under this model, the cooperative generates referral fees, which are distributed back to members in the form of patronage refunds, whenever their members avail of RCBC loans, credit cards or insurance products, fostering deeper engagement and incentivising cooperatives to promote RCBC’s offerings within their communities. Emmanuel Valdes, Head of Emerging Affluent and Affluent Market Segment Division at RCBC Victoria P. Victoria, First Vice President Niche and Special Markets Department at RCBC RCBC’s collaboration with cooperatives help transition them from being passive clients to ambassadors in driving financial inclusion. Lustado highlighted that Kabalikat is about co-creating solutions with cooperatives, and not just for them. The partnerships span the entire cooperative sector, focusing on a partner's geographic presence and commitment to service. The programme also integrates digital solutions, such as disbursement debit cards, to simplify financial transactions and promote financial literacy. This helps cooperatives offer better services to their members, while strengthening trust and supporting long-term growth. Since launch, Kabalikat has onboarded nearly 200 cooperatives, with deposits growing by 25% year-on-year to PHP 11.7 billion ($209 million). The programme’s digital tools and financial literacy workshops have strengthened relationships with cooperatives and their members, positioning RCBC as a trusted partner in the cooperative sector. Lustado noted that Kabalikat aims for consistency rather than scale, focusing on building strong, sustainable relationships rather than simply increasing account numbers. RCBC extends its engagement with SMEs through Negosyo Bundle Plus, a program that integrates payments and other merchant services into a single package. This holistic approach reduces operational friction for SMEs, allowing them to focus on growth while benefiting from a broader relationship with RCBC. According to the Department of Trade and Industry, SMEs make up 99.63% of all business establishments in the Philippines and continue to be the primary driver of the economy. "Since its launch, Negosyo Bundle Plus has more than doubled its merchant count versus last year which underscores the value the program brings to SMEs. We envision business owners using this program to help accelerate their growth," said Avery Wong, head of payments ecosystem department at RCBC. Avery Wong, Head of Payments Ecosystem Department at RCBC Retail strategy focuses on relationships and data-driven growth in underserved segments RCBC’s strategic pattern is consistent across its initiatives: build relationships with underserved segments, focus on programmes rather than products, and measure success by depth of engagement rather than account numbers. As Lim put it, “The strategy is just a strategy; the hardest part is execution.” Over the next three to five years, RCBC plans to deepen engagement with its customers through data-driven insights, offering tailored solutions as customers' financial needs evolve. Lustado added that this strategy offers a more sustainable path to growth than traditional product-driven strategies. Currently the fifth largest privately owned bank in the country, RCBC continues to provide a more inclusive, relationship-based approach to retail banking. By focusing on segments such as employees in SMEs, cooperatives and emerging affluent customers, RCBC aims to offer customised financial solutions that evolve as customers' wealth grows, through data analytics and customer segmentation.
