This is the story of how PayMaya, the far #2 e-wallet brand in the Philippines, created a new language and visual of money to emerge as the undisputed #1 digital bank for the defiant and confident Gen Zs

Transforming into a bank, which is openly defying banking conventions, necessitates a radically different way the old brand presented itself. Instead of Maya telling Gen Zs what they need, the brand proclaims, “Your money, your way!”

To bring this to life, a new identity is needed to reflect the convenience and security of its game-changing all-in-one money experience in a way that resonates with the edgy street culture, optimistic vibe, and inclusive values of Gen Zs.

Today, Maya is #1 top-rated finance app, beating the #1 e-wallet, traditional banks, and digital banks. This has allowed it to start strong into fulfilling its company vision of the narrowing the country’s banking gap.

Creative Challenge

With the rise of neo-banks and digitalization of traditional banks, PayMaya had to rebrand to Maya in a way that will boost its awareness but also carve a brand perception among Gen Zs and young millennials.

Unbanked but not Uneducated

Based on the brand’s research, while many of them are unbanked, it didn’t mean that they were uneducated about money. They aspire for financial freedom and have been learning about money through online communities, money influencers, and other informative entertaining content.

A New Money Language

In learning from these sources, a new money language developed - one that doesn’t use confusing and boring bank jargon.

Making Banking Gen-Zified

Maya’s strategy was simple: recreate its brand identity and increase its appeal to the Gen Z by inspiring them to be independent money makers using forms of expressions that could fully capture who they are, their dreams, and aspirations.

Maya’s confident stance is built around the following elements:

Refreshed Visual Identity

The logo pays homage to the old brand, which was inspired by Maya bird. The wordmark is a sans serif custom typeface with distinct bird-pecked inktraps.

Standing out in green in a sea of blues and reds, Maya is bold, graphic, and visual – from edgy graphics to an almost-neon aesthetic.

Maya ditches stock photography in favor of talents to show the real “best selves” of Gen Zs.

Exciting Kinetic Identity

Maya builds its kinetic identity that lends itself to “everything-ness”: the motion of the money counter.

Unique Brand Voice

Being defiant and optimistic, Maya’s voice is audacious, delightful, and smart. This stirs people’s imagination for all the thrilling things they can do with Maya.

All-new Sonic Identity

Its sound is simple and memorable, with few bars and progressive/modern tone echoing the ideas of freedom, innovation, and optimism.

Maya’s rebrand allowed it to start strong to become the #1 digital digital bank during its rebrand campaign.

• Based on data from the Philippines’ central bank, 5 months after our launch in April 2022, total digital bank accounts opened (among the 6 digital banks) was at 1.38M and Maya Bank accounted for 1.1M of that.

• Based on app ratings from Apple Playstore and Google Store, Maya app is the top-rated app among competitors: top e-wallet GCash, digital bank Tonik, and trad banks BPI and BDO.

Maya achieved a significant increase in awareness and consideration scores, based on Kantar study.

• Awareness grew from 85pts to 99pts

• Consideration rose to 78pt, higher than all other top digital banks

Maya gained a positive reception across Kantar creative diagnostics.

• Scores were significantly higher against norm on likeability, branding, relevance, believability, new information, and different.