If you run a small business in the Philippines and have never been approved for a bank loan, you have plenty of company.
In the BSP's 2025 Consumer Finance and Inclusion Survey, 25% of Filipino adults had an outstanding loan. Formal lenders accounted for 16% of adults. Banks, on their own, accounted for 3%.
If your business runs mostly on cash, as many do, there may be very little on paper for a lender to look at. No repayment record, no statements, nothing that shows up in a credit check.
That does not put credit out of reach. It does mean that a business without a credit history or property to pledge will probably have to look past the conventional bank loan.
This article covers where the Philippines is in building a credit system that works for ordinary businesses, and the practical ways to get financing today without a history or a card.
The Philippines is still building its credit system
Formal credit here is young. The Credit Information Corporation only began collecting data in the mid-2010s, and its coverage is still thin. In the US or the UK, lenders have decades of repayment records on most adults. That is a big part of why a Philippine bank asks for a land title instead of pulling a score.
The 2025 BSP survey shows how borrowing actually happens. Of the 25% of adults with a loan, formal sources covered 16% and informal sources 10%. Microfinance institutions were the main formal lender, not banks. Asked why they stayed away from formal lenders, respondents kept naming the same things: no documents, no acceptable ID, income too low, nothing to put up as collateral.
For businesses the gap is wider. MSMEs make up 99.6 percent of businesses in the country, but MSME loans were only around 4 percent of bank lending in 2023. The 10 percent mandatory MSME credit allocation under the Magna Carta lapsed in 2018 and was never renewed.
The World Bank and IFC have both flagged a large MSME financing gap in the Philippines, part of the wider difficulty of extending formal finance to smaller firms. Recent BSP figures put MSME lending at about ₱580 billion, roughly 6% of total business lending.
The regulator is aware of this and has been working on it. The BSP's National Strategy for Financial Inclusion 2022-2028 makes MSME finance one of its main pillars. Together with the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the BSP has built a Credit Risk Database that draws on SME data so lenders can assess risk on the numbers rather than on collateral alone.
The BSP has also looked at alternative data, such as utility payments and telco records, as a way to assess borrowers who have no file.
Two other pieces are falling into place. The National ID has fixed the identification problem for a large share of the population, and the BSP's open finance framework is meant to let customers share their financial data with a lender when they choose to.
How to get credit without a credit history or a card
"No history" is a narrower problem than it sounds. What a lender really wants to know is whether money comes in regularly and whether you pay what you owe. A credit score is one way to show that. There are others, and here they are in roughly the order a new business should work through them.
Start with the records you already have
Every sale that goes through a payment gateway, an e-wallet business account, or a bank deposit is a data point. Lenders are starting to read these directly, and the BSP wants them to. If your revenue moves through formal channels, you are building a record whether you intended to or not. For a business that still takes everything in cash, moving some of that into a traceable channel is the most useful first step there is.
Registration works the same way. A DTI or SEC certificate, a BIR registration, and a mayor's permit are exactly the documents that 65 percent of respondents in the BSP survey said they lacked when they were turned away from banks. Getting them takes a few days and a few thousand pesos. Once you have them, a lender has something to assess.
Use the lenders built for people without a file
Microfinance institutions and cooperatives exist for borrowers with no history. Their loans are usually smaller than a conventional business loan, and amounts, pricing, and eligibility vary from one institution to the next.
Ask your suppliers before you ask a bank
Trade credit is the oldest form of business financing and it often costs nothing. A supplier you have paid on time for a while may agree to longer payment terms, especially once you have a steady record of ordering and settling with them.
Let your sales do the underwriting
For a growing online business, financing based on actual revenue rather than paperwork is often the most practical route. Instead of a credit file, the lender looks at your transaction history on a platform it can see, sizes an offer to that history, and collects repayment as a share of daily sales. You pay more on good days and less on slow ones.
This is how PayMongo Capital works. Eligible PayMongo merchants may receive financing offers based on their transaction history, with options that include a term loan or a revolving credit line, and no property collateral required.
Even if you never take this route, it is useful to know it exists. Sales-based financing gives lenders a way to use a business's transaction record as part of the assessment, which opens up another source of funding for businesses that cannot meet the usual bank requirements.
Use small credit strategically
A small loan can help establish a repayment history, as long as there is a real need behind it. When you do borrow, look for lenders that report to the CIC and pay on time. Borrowing you do not need, just to build a file, adds interest and fees and does not guarantee better access later.
Why a business needs credit in the first place
Borrowing gets a bad name because people picture it as a last resort. For most healthy businesses it is the opposite: a way to act on an opportunity before the cash to pay for it has arrived.
Almost every business runs on a delay. You pay for stock, staff, and rent before your customers pay you, and the gap can stretch to two or three months when your buyers are bigger companies. Peak seasons make it worse, because the buying has to happen well before the selling. Credit is what bridges that gap. Without it, you order less than you could sell, turn down work you could do, or drain everything else to keep going.
Growth works the same way. Better equipment, a second location, another pair of hands: each pays for itself, but only after it has been paid for. The BSP found that 88% of MSMEs wanted to expand, yet most were funding it from personal savings, which runs out fast and leaves nothing for the family if something goes wrong.
Used well, credit lets a business grow at the pace of its opportunities instead of the pace of its owner's bank balance. A lot of Philippine businesses stay small simply because they have had to pay for every step in cash.
Where this leaves a Filipino business owner today
The Philippine credit system is a few years away from where it needs to be. The database exists, the ID problem is mostly solved, and the regulator is pushing banks in the right direction. For now, though, a business with no history still cannot expect much from a branch.
What it can expect is a growing set of lenders that judge a business on what it does rather than what it has on file. Register the business, put the sales through channels that leave a record, use the lenders designed for first-time borrowers, and let the transaction history you are building speak for you. Credit follows the money. Make the money visible and the credit tends to follow.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get a business loan in the Philippines without a credit history?
Yes. Microfinance institutions, cooperatives, government programs like DTI's P3, and revenue-based financing from payment platforms all lend to businesses with no credit file. They look at your registration, your sales records, and your repayment behavior rather than a score.
Do I need collateral for a small business loan in the Philippines?
Often not. It depends on the lender and the product. Some microfinance, cooperative, and government-backed loans are unsecured, while other lenders may ask for assets or another form of security.
How do I build a credit history in the Philippines?
Register your business, keep a bank or e-money account, and maintain clear records of your transactions. When you have a real reason to borrow, use lenders that report to the CIC and pay on time. Some lenders also consider alternative data as part of their assessment.
What is the Credit Information Corporation?
The CIC is the Philippines' government-mandated central credit registry, created under the Credit Information System Act of 2008. Banks, lending companies, and other covered lenders submit borrower data to it, and you have the right to request your own report.
