Digital lending, savings deposits and mobile money are set to be the most promising fintech sectors in the Philippines going forward, according to analysts from Robocash Group.
Every four years, The World Bank publishes its ‘Global Findex’ to determine the progress of digital finance and financial inclusion around different parts of the world.
Its most recent edition, which was released in June 2022, indicated how developing countries in particular were actively making significant progress in this regard.
For instance, compared to 2017, the share of account holders has increased by eight percentage points to 71 per cent, and the number of respondents who made or received digital payments increased by 13 percentage points to 57 per cent.
The findings of The World Bank appear to correlate with data produced by analysts of Robocash Group, a financial group of companies providing robotic financial services in the field of alternative lending and marketplace funding.
Robocash Group operates in the Philippines through the online credit service Digido, along with a financial mobile app UnaCash.
The Group’s research measured the adoption of digital payments and financial adoption in the Philippines, and ultimately found that the country’s financial services are becoming increasingly accessible.
According to the Group, the number of current account holders has increased by 1.5-times to 51.4 per cent of the population. Even more impressively, the share of credit and debit card owners has grown threefold to 15.9 per cent while the share of mobile accounts has grown fivefold to 21.7 per cent.
The data also appears to show that the country’s borrowing increased from 10.7 per cent to 17.5 per cent in tandem with general savings, which also grew from 11.9 per cent to 19.2 per cent.
These improvements are most noteworthy, as they set up digital lending, savings deposits and mobile money to be the most promising fintech sectors in the Philippines.
Providing additional insight, the Robocash analysts comment: “From our perspective, Findex has confirmed most of what we’ve known already. We conducted a similar survey in the Philippines in 2021. Its results largely fall in line with The World Bank findings: the share of financial institution accounts (Findex – 45.9 per cent, RCG – 38 per cent), borrowings from financial institutions (17.5 per cent versus 22.5 per cent), to name a few.
“The catalyst behind such explosive growth is the Covid-19 pandemic, as 68 per cent of the respondents claimed to have experienced financial difficulties at the time, and therefore were forced to adapt. Naturally, government policies on financial inclusion have played their own part as well.”
Image and article originally from thefintechtimes.com. Read the original article here.