Salmon Group

Salmon Group was founded in 2022 by fintech and banking veterans Pavel Fedorov, George Chesakov, and Raffy Montemayor to bring digital credit to underbanked Filipino consumers. George Chesakov serves as CEO, with Pavel Fedorov as Executive Chairman.

Salmon operates through two separately regulated Philippine entities: a BSP-licensed bank (Salmon Bank) that can take deposits, and an SEC-licensed financing company that originates and holds credit products — revolving credit, installment loans, cash loans, and motorbike loans — under its own license. That dual structure lets Salmon fund lending across both a banking and a financing rail rather than relying on one license alone.

In April 2026, Salmon closed a $100 million financing round — a $60 million equity tranche led by Spice Expeditions (joined by Washington University Investment Management Company, Moore Strategic Ventures, FJ Labs, and existing investors) plus a $40 million public bond issuance — reported as the largest single funding event for a Philippine startup so far in 2026, bringing its total raised to roughly $310 million across equity and bonds.

A large share of Filipino consumers remain underbanked and underserved by formal credit, while building a full consumer-lending business in the Philippines requires navigating separate banking and financing-company regulatory regimes.

Salmon addresses this by operating both a licensed bank and a licensed financing company under one group, rather than forcing one entity to do both jobs.

Underbanked and credit-underserved Filipino consumers seeking revolving credit, installment loans, cash loans, or motorbike loans, served through Salmon Bank and Salmon's financing-company products.

Salmon's dual-license structure — a BSP-licensed bank paired with an SEC-licensed financing company — lets it originate and hold credit products under whichever license fits the product, and its 2026 fundraising (equity plus a public bond issuance) is among the largest ever raised by a Philippine startup.