Going beyond: Why the future of MSME financing demands more than access
for Global Dominion
MANILA, Philippines — Every July, I think about the sari-sari store owner who grew into a neighborhood grocery, the home cook who built a food brand, and the entrepreneur who turned secondhand trucks into a construction and hardware enterprise. MSME Month exists because their stories, multiplied across nearly a million enterprises nationwide, are the story of the Philippine economy itself. And yet, for many of them, the hardest part of growing a business is not finding customers. It is finding capital.
I returned to Global Dominion Financing this June carrying that reality with me more clearly than ever. A season away, leading a similar institution, gave me a closer view of how the challenges facing Filipino entrepreneurs are not shrinking. They are shifting. Coming home has given me a renewed sense of urgency about closing that gap.
The lending landscape today looks different from the one I left. Banks and larger institutions, cautious amid an uncertain economy, have pulled back their risk appetite, often exactly where it is needed most: among first-time borrowers, rural entrepreneurs, and small business owners without a long credit history to point to.
At the same time, borrowers themselves have changed. They no longer expect to queue at a branch for days waiting on a decision. They expect to apply from their phone, get a fair answer quickly, and get on with running their business. Beneath both shifts sits a quieter one: the institutions that will thrive are the ones that can absorb volatility without pulling away from the customers who need them most. Because resilience, not just growth, has become the real test of a lending company’s worth.
Global Dominion has spent the past year building for exactly this moment. Our MyLoans App has turned what used to be a multi-visit ordeal into a mobile-first process. AI-assisted systems now support our teams in a way that has already helped disburse more than P200 million in loans, faster and more efficiently, without losing the human judgment that lending still requires.
The results speak for themselves: we closed 2025 with P4.4 billion in total revenue and P874.7 million in net income, 25 percent higher than the year before (10 percent growth when consolidated with its subsidiaries). These are not just numbers on a report. They are proof that we can grow responsibly while staying rooted in our purpose.
“Go Beyond” is Global Dominion’s 2026 mantra, a reminder that we can always do more for the customers we serve. It means growing our 196 branches deeper into the provinces that urban-centric lenders often overlook. It means pairing digital speed with human support, so no borrower is left to navigate a loan application alone. And it means treating financial inclusion not as a checkbox, but as our actual growth strategy, because our success and the success of Filipino MSMEs are, and always have been, the same story.
This MSME Month, that is the commitment I bring back to Global Dominion: to build a company that does not just keep up with where lending is headed, but helps carry Filipino entrepreneurs there with us.
About the author: Samuel Cariño is the president & CEO of Global Dominion.
Editor’s Note: This press release is sponsored by Global Dominion. It is published by the Advertising Content Team that is independent from our Editorial Newsroom.
