Following the recent holiday season, where most Filipinos tend to use online banking for their transactions, it has been proven that digital financing is now at the forefront of convenience among Filipinos and now plays a crucial part in the Philippine economy.
This was seen in a survey conducted by Capstone-Intel last November 22 to 29, 2023, which involved about 1,503 respondents across the country where it was revealed that about 9 out of 10 Filipinos are now using finance applications for their daily transactions, highlighting a need to build a safer finance technology infrastructure in the country as more Filipinos embrace digital financing
The results show that among the digital finance applications and technologies used by respondents include GCash with 94% of respondents claiming they have and are using the mobile payment service. This was followed by PayMaya with 39%, ShopeePay with 26%, bank applications with 18%, GrabPay with 8%, and other fintech applications with 5%.
Meanwhile, only 2% of the total respondents claimed that they are not using any finance applications.
Looking at the significance of the data, Capstone-Intel Research and Publications Director Ella Kristina Domingo-Coronel said that small-scale businesses in the country are now utilizing the use of digital financing, and while these are privately owned, the Philippine government has to step up in ensuring that they are safely regulated and enhanced for the safety of Filipino consumers.
“As we can see, even ‘sari-sari’ stores now have a digital financing option for their customers. This means that the accessibility and availability are there. That’s why even though these fintech applications are owned by the private sector, the national government has to enhance the country’s finance technology infrastructure, including the measures that safeguard the consumers in order to ensure the safety of Filipinos,” Domingo-Coronel said
Domingo-Coronel also highlighted that even though the country has now embraced online financing in some of its processes, the current state of the Philippines’ financial technology still has to be popularized across all demographics and normalize the usage of digital financing in all processes, either for public or private transactions.
“While we see a considerable amount of Filipinos using digital financing, we also observe several complaints about the inconvenience of online financing in the country including the sluggish performance of these apps, its unending maintenance that burdens the consumers using online financing to pay their bills, and of course, the struggle with online scams,” she noted.
“I would say that we still have to promote the utilization of digital financing in the Philippines in order to weaken the negative outlook of the public about this option and normalize the usage of these fintech applications for us to amplify public confidence on digital financing,” she added.
She noted that the COVID-19 pandemic saw the significance of digitizing banking transactions and this occasion led to the advancement of the fintech industry, emphasizing that everyone should capitalize on this development for swift economic mobility in this industry.
“It was deemed possible by the pandemic for the Philippines to upgrade their banking processes, that’s why now that we are back to the usual setting, it is high time that we capitalize on this because not only it saves the time of the consumers, the digital era is already here and we have to keep up with the demands of the changing financial economic environment,” she said.
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Capstone-Intel Corporation is a high-impact research company that uses innovative research technologies, tools, and methods to convert data and information into breakthrough insights and actionable intelligence outputs. It is committed to helping its clients solve problems, find solutions, grow markets and constituencies, build reputations, navigate risks, manage crises, and be the country’s leading private research and intelligence agency.
Thanks for the insights! Will you be releasing a copy of the study?