Continued innovation and investment in the Philippines’ digital payments sector will help boost financial inclusion by making the ecosystem more sustainable and lowering transaction costs, speakers said at the ASEAN Tech Summit Manila 2026 on Wednesday.

Improving interoperability in the payments system to broaden participation could be achieved through public-private partnerships, similar to those used in Brazil and India, and could ultimately lead to better financial services through competition, said Maya Bank, Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer Angelo S. Madrid, who is also president of the Digital Bank Association of the Philippines.

“What I like is that it will invite a lot more smaller participants. From a consumer standpoint, what I want is not a zero basis. I want 20 EMIs (e-money issuers) competing for my money,” he said during a panel discussion.

“And that is really the promise of digital innovation, because if you can allow more players to compete in this space, then I think that’s where the customer really wins.”

He said Philippine financial institutions’ compliance with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) new rules aimed at lowering the cost of digital retail transactions has varied because of differences in their operating models.

“There are institutions that are able to just go zero because they have a lot of revenue lines, right? They’re much more balanced. They don’t really depend too much on a particular business. And since some institutions are not as active in driving digital adoption, for them, it’s much better,” he said.

“Then you have institutions that are digital natives whose entire business model is really designed to facilitate a digital transaction. So, technology, unfortunately, is not free because it requires billions of dollars of investments. And you have a lot of players also investing in this market. So, in addition to making the digital transaction affordable and seamless, the safety component of it cannot be understated enough.”

To ensure the sustainability of digital financial services for both providers and consumers, Mr. Madrid said the Philippines could adopt practices used in other countries, such as setting a long-term investment roadmap for the payments ecosystem.

“I see regulation as a way to amplify the value proposition of what the Philippines is in the future — not just the next 10 years but the next 30 years, and also the potential of the money in the pocket of every Filipino. I think that’s where we need to really focus on and we can just gravitate towards that.”

Tala Philippines External Affairs Director Arianne Ferrer also said progressive regulation should focus on the risks faced by each type of institution.

“First, I believe that regulation should be collaborative, so a work in progress between the public sector and the private sector, where the public sector tends to have the theoretical operational realities. Regulation, I believe, should be risk-based and proportional, and take into account the specific circumstances, the different categories of financial institutions.”

GCash Chief Operating Officer and General Manager for Consumer Business Barbie Rodriguez-Dapul also said strengthening the country’s payments ecosystem by supporting digital-first players such as e-money issuers (EMI) would help its development.

“The EMI model is built for scale. We want to build access. And how we do that is through the reliance on digital payments, in GXI (G-Xchange, Inc.) at least. So, not through lending and not through savings. It’s really the digital payments that make us able to make the investments to be able to sustain the innovation, to sustain the infrastructure needed to be able to give quality services to our customers.”

Alliance of Tech Innovators for the Nation Lead Convenor Monchito Ibrahim said government agencies should host more regulatory sandboxes, similar to initiatives by the BSP and the Securities Exchange Commission, to promote public-private partnerships and innovation.

“This is something that we are pushing for, the passage of a circular before the end of the administration,” Mr. Ibrahim said. — Aaron Michael C. Sy