Beyond the Balance Sheet: A Dialogue with Georg Steiger

Billease has gone through a series of bold evolutions, from cash lending to BNPL, e-wallets, and now a rural bank acquisition. How do you lead a team through that kind of transition when the destination is not fully clear yet?

The destination has always been clear: making financial services accessible to Filipinos who've been underserved by traditional banks. What evolved was the product, and that evolution was driven by our customers. We started with BNPL online, then added e-wallet/cash loans because customers asked for it. When people returned to malls after the pandemic, we followed them with offline BNPL and QRPH. And the rural bank acquisition was the natural next step: you can't truly serve the unbanked without becoming a bank. Each layer builds on the last. We don't think of these as pivots, it's an expanding capability stack, and the team understands that because every step came from listening to what customers actually needed.

The fintech landscape in the Philippines can change overnight: new regulations, shifting customer behaviour, competitors moving fast. As Billease scales, how do you keep the team nimble and a step ahead, while maintaining a clear and unwavering sense of direction?

I wouldn't say the landscape changes overnight. It evolves, and the regulators here deserve credit for that. The BSP and SEC are proactive and genuinely focused on improving the ecosystem for consumers, which creates a stable foundation even as the rules develop. We stay close to that process and engage constructively. On the competitive side, we study the market closely but we don't chase features. Our north star is the customer's financial health, and that filters every product decision. And we invest heavily in technology and AI, not because it's fashionable, but because a lean team competing in this market needs leverage. The direction doesn't waver; the execution adapts.

Nearly 90% of Billease customers report an improved ability to manage their finances after using the platform. As a leader, how do you keep that human impact visible and central to the team's motivation, especially as the business scales and the distance between decisions and customers grows?

It's core to our mission. Customer impact is central to how we discuss decisions and trade-offs. When we're debating a product change or a policy, the question is always whether it improves our customers' financial lives. Our customers are often people who had limited or no access to formal credit before Billease, and that context stays with you. As we scale, the challenge is real, but the discipline is straightforward: keep the customer at the centre of every conversation.

With Billease now projecting to move into deposit-taking and aiming to fund one-third to half of its loan book through deposits by 2027, what does that transformation actually look like on the ground for your team and your customers?

For customers, the promise is simple: the same app where you borrow today becomes the place where you save tomorrow. A customer who started with a BNPL purchase can graduate to a credit line and eventually open a savings account. That's the full financial inclusion arc, from borrowing to building wealth. For the team, it means integrating the rural bank's operations with our technology platform, meeting regulatory requirements, and building savings products from scratch. On the funding side, deposits give us a stable and low cost of capital, which means better rates for borrowers. That creates a virtuous cycle: cheaper funding, better products, more customers.

Helicap has been leading Billease's credit facility. What does a financing partner like Helicap offer beyond capital, and how has that relationship shaped the way Billease thinks about its broader funding strategy?

The rigor of Helicap’s credit analytics: stress-testing the portfolio, challenging underwriting assumptions, holding us to institutional-grade reporting, makes us a better company, not just a better-funded one. That process builds internal disciplines around data governance and risk management that become competitive advantages in their own right. Helicap's regional perspective across Southeast Asia also gives us valuable pattern recognition. And frankly, the relationship proved that emerging market fintech can attract sophisticated institutional capital if you have the data discipline to back it up. That opens doors to broader funding sources.

Question: Institutional credibility is hard-won in emerging market fintech. How important has it been to work with partners who combine rigorous credit analytics with a genuine belief in the financial inclusion mission, and does values alignment actually show up in how deals get done?

Yes, it shows up concretely. When a financing partner genuinely believes in financial inclusion, the conversation is different. They're willing to engage with borrower segments that a purely commercial lender might dismiss as too risky, provided the data supports it. That willingness to look beyond the surface is how values alignment translates into real outcomes. Institutional credibility in Philippine fintech is hard-won, and working with partners who combine analytical rigor with mission alignment sends a signal to regulators, investors, and customers that we're building for the long term. Each partnership like that compounds, and it makes the next one easier and the foundation more durable.

With a rural bank integration underway, a Series C from TPG, and a team scaling fast, what does your personal operating rhythm look like right now, and how do you protect your own clarity and energy through it all?

I stay closely involved in the product and technology. I prototype, review architectures, and stay hands-on. At this stage that's deliberate: strategic decisions are better when they're grounded in what's actually possible, not just what looks good on a slide. But I'm one of three co-founders, and we share the load across our respective strengths. We've also built a very strong executive team around us, which means I can go deep on the things that need CEO attention, such as regulatory strategy, bank integration, our AI roadmap, and trust the team to execute within clear frameworks.

That's how you manage the complexity of running a bank integration, an AI transformation, and institutional fundraising simultaneously.

Most founders are open about the highs but protective of the lows. What was the period in Billease's journey that genuinely tested you as a person, not just as a CEO, and what got you through it?

The COVID lockdown in the Philippines. We're a lending business, and suddenly our borrowers were in crisis. The easy call would have been to pull back and protect the balance sheet. We decided to keep lending to customers who relied on us, and that was a “values” decision as much as a business one. Some of those customers had no other source of credit.

On a personal level, I made the decision to stay put in the Philippines when many expats were leaving. This is where we built the company, this is where our customers and team are, and it didn't feel right to leave. That period tested conviction in a way that no board meeting or fundraise ever does. What got us through it was the team's resilience and the knowledge that our customers needed us most precisely when things were hardest.

Outside of Billease, what do you do to fully switch off, and is there a passion, hobby, or part of your life that people who only know you professionally would be genuinely surprised by?

I stay close to friends and family because that connection matters more the longer you've been building a company abroad. I stay fit and cycle regularly, which is as much about clearing my head as it is about exercise. And I'm a scuba diver, which is the one thing that genuinely forces you to switch off, you can't check your phone underwater. The Philippines happens to be one of the best places in the world for it.