How The Philippines Transformed Its Financial Industry - YouTube

The Philippines Financial Technology or FinTech  for short, is becoming the new norm for the  

country. People are rapidly transitioning from  using cash to using apps that power the cashless  

society. This is happening everywhere, from  the smallest stores such as sari-sari and to  

the biggest malls on the island nation. The land’s  biggest fintech company, GCash, reported that in  

2021, the country registered way over 3.8 Trillion  Pesos in transaction value or around $74 billion  

US dollars. But just in 2020, the app reported  nowhere near, as it only had $1.2 Trillion pesos  

or $23 billion dollars in transaction value. So,  how did the Philippines transform its overall  

financial industry in just a small amount of time?  Was it because of the covid lockdowns? Or was it  

through strong strategic governance by the GCash  Company? Moreover, what does the future look like?  

Before, we move on don’t forget to leave us a like  and subscribe for more! The Philippines' reliance  

on FinTech was never really that big in the past,  unlike other countries that transitioned years  

back, the Philippines only did so in the past  few years. In 2017, the entire nation only had  

2.2 million active e-money accounts but by  2021, it is now around 55 million. While the  

growth of FinTech, as many believed was driven  by the covid lockdown, we believe it wasn’t the  

only main driver. As it was also in 2019, prior to  the pandemic that e-payments were surging already,  

in that year close to 18 million people had active  e-money accounts. This strong move to digital was,  

partly, because of the superb execution of  the so-called GCash app, the country’s leading  

fintech application that has an extensive  amount of financial services. The company,  

behind the application, is called Mynt, and it is  also the country’s first-ever Unicorn enterprise  

or $1 billion dollars or more in valuation as a  startup. Mynt is a startup partnership, however,  

not by a group of highly intelligent individuals  but backed by 3 huge corporations, Namely,  

Globe Telecom, Ayala Corporation, two of which  resides in the Philippines, and Ant Financial,  

China’s leading digital payment and the one behind  Alipay which is also renowned to be founded by no  

other than Jack Ma. Mynt has so far two services,  the first is GCash and the second is Fuse, a  

lending platform. Currently, the startup is valued  at $2 billion dollars after it raised over $300  

million dollars from several investors around the  world. This has placed the company as one of the  

most exciting startups to watch in Southeast Asia.  Although Mynt is the leading fintech corporation  

in the country, it is not the only one operating  in the nation. A company called PayMaya, which has  

38 million users is also a substantial mover in  this category, and just like Mynt, this enterprise  

is backed by the country’s largest corporations  as well. This along with 216 fintech companies  

operating in the land are continually helping  transform the very lives of Filipinos to become  

more global. Services in the island nation are  growing, from Insur tech, wealth tech, blockchain,  

crowdfunding, the rapid emergence of companies  serving these categories are the reason why  

innovation is taking place and it helped  shift every Filipino’s decision to go digital.  

The future of fintech, on the other hand, is just  going to get bigger. By 2023, the Central bank of  

the Philippines predicts that 50% of the total  retail transaction will be done through digital,  

and 70% of Filipino adults will be financially  included. This is going to be a big mover to  

the financial system, as there are still  a number of Filipino adults still unbanked  

but it is all going to change due to the low  barrier of entry of Fintech. What’s going to  

be the helm of financial technologies, however,  as we believe is cryptocurrency. The societies’  

blockchain potential is ripe for innovation. A  study found that the Philippines is one of the  

leading adopters of this emerging disruption.  As the citizens slowly realized the potential  

of it to become an income-generating and value  of crypto. Even the Philippine Stock Exchange,  

local banks, stated that they have plans to  provide cryptocurrencies as assets or for trading.  

These are all propelling the Philippines  as a country ripe for innovation in the  

financial technology space. Disrupting the  status quo in this industry will also place  

more emphasis on other emerging technologies, as  this sector continues to emerge as a place filled  

with innovation, we will see more of these  moving the entire country’s economy further.