Pavel Fedorov
Salmon Group
Co-Founder
In January 2024, fintech Salmon secured regulatory approval to become a licensed bank in the Philippines. Pavel Fedorov, Co-Founder of Salmon Group, told Qorus' Boris Plantier more about this new bank and its plan for years to come.
The demographics of neobank users are often surprising; it is not only young people who are signing up, but also older age brackets. What is the standard profile of your target customer? What has been key to your customer acquisition success?
When we think about the profile of our customers, it’s not just a one-size-fits-all model. At Salmon we believe banking should be accessible to all. Our customer base spans from digital natives – young people who demand seamless, intuitive experiences – to older generations who are now, more than ever, seeking alternatives to outdated traditional banking models.
What’s key to our success? It’s creating a product that’s not only simple and transparent but deeply relevant to people’s lives. We listen closely to what our customers want and remove friction. If you can solve real problems, deliver consistently better products to serve customer needs, provide better customer service, be frank and transparent about the fees and commissions, and empower people to go after their dreams, this will be your key to long-term success.
There is sometimes a perception that neobanks are convenient for travel purposes but people maintain a different primary bank account for most of their banking needs. How do you convince people to use neobanks as their primary bank, where they keep a majority of their money and turn to for all of their financial needs?
There’s a trust issue, and it’s understandable. Many customers still keep a legacy bank account because they see it as a safety net. Our approach is to offer unparalleled convenience and reliability at every touchpoint, particularly at this point in time with credit products.
At Salmon, we focus on building long-term relationships, whether that’s through a product that meets every financial need or by being transparent and offering better service than legacy banks. You earn people’s trust through everyday actions. Our customers start small with us – maybe a product loan or a credit line – and over time, as we deliver more value, they come to realize we’re the bank they can rely on for everything.
While neobanks have shown impressive numbers in terms of customer acquisition, the transition to becoming profitable is proving more challenging. How do you make the necessary leap to becoming profitable while still maintaining the pace of your user acquisition?
Growth and profitability are not mutually exclusive. At Salmon, we’re very strategic with our customer acquisition model. We’re not looking for rapid growth for growth’s sake, but rather sustainable and profitable growth where each customer unlocks long-term value for themselves through building a financial relationship with Salmon. Our strength lies in diversifying revenue streams – fairly soon we will be offering services that go beyond traditional banking, such as embedded fintech solutions, insurance and other services. By deepening our relationship with each customer, driving cross-sales and providing more integrated financial solutions, we can drive profitability while maintaining our growth trajectory.
Being a bank without branches, customers only interact with you digitally. How do you ensure an excellent customer service experience with interactions being 100% digital? Are there certain advantages or challenges compared to banks that need to manage physical spaces?
We believe that ‘digital’ is not a business model; it’s about using technology to anticipate and fulfill customer needs. We are very omni-channel in delivering our solutions both offline and online. At Salmon, we believe in the power of technology to create more personalized, more responsive and more human customer experiences than traditional banks can offer. In many cases, we go further by using data to anticipate customer needs before they arise.
What are your international expansion plans? Could you describe the regulatory or technical challenges to becoming a truly national/global neobank?
Expansion is always part of the growth story. For Salmon, our vision is to become Southeast Asia’s leading credit-led neobank. While international markets present their own set of regulatory and technical hurdles, it’s also about knowing your customer base and tailoring your approach to the unique regulatory landscape in each market. Whether you’re dealing with local compliance issues or integrating different financial systems, the key is adaptability and ensuring you’re adding real value to each new market. At this stage of our growth, we are laser-focused on quality execution in the Philippines and, perhaps, in 2025 will start exploring further some of the international growth ideas.
How do you see your bank evolving in the next five to ten years? And more generally how do you see neobanks competing in the future banking landscape?
In five to ten years, Salmon won’t just be a neobank – we’ll be a platform that redefines what modern banking should be. We’re moving toward a future where financial services are more integrated into the daily lives of our customers and AI is invisible in fulfilling customers’ needs.
The successful banks of the future will be the ones who best understand customer needs, leveraging data and AI to offer personalized, real-time financial advice. As traditional banks struggle with legacy systems and overheads, we see the new breed of banks leading the way in offering not just superior products but more agile, customer-centric banking experiences. The future belongs to those who can innovate continuously while maintaining trust and reliability without the costs and complexity of the legacy systems.
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