Project International Trade's Virtual Toolkit to Asia​

Philippines

The Philippines is the 13th largest country in the world by population (more than 109 million) and is the sixth-largest English-speaking country. Beyond this, it has one of the youngest populations in the world, with about 43% of the population under the age of 20. Since January of this year, 73.9m use the internet and 82.3m have a mobile phone.

In fact, the Philippines was one of the first nations in the world to make the move to digital payments (with the launch of mobile money in 2001). Yet, despite the country’s booming eCommerce market, which has an annual growth rate of 14.64%, and is projected to hit a market volume of US$8.8bn by 2025, Filipinos overwhelmingly prefer to use cash in 80% of e-commerce transactions and 71% of eligible adults remain unbanked.

However, the economy remains ripe for disruption and fintechs are starting to play a transformative role, notably the rapidly growing adoption of the emerging QR codes for digital transactions.

Recently, the Philippine central bank (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, BSP) reported that the use of e-payments had spiked more than 5,000% due to the pandemic, thanks to the increasingly ubiquitous use of “QR Ph” codes to move money between people and merchants. Local players PESONet and InstaPay reported huge surges in digital transactions this year, 15.3m (up by 376%) and 86.7m (up by 459%) respectively.

Notably, Filipinos have started to use digital payments to pay for bills (44%) and groceries (36%) as of November 2020, compared to an overall share of just 1% back in 2015.

Following these developments in the digital ecosystem and wider consumer behaviour, the Philippine central bank has set promising targets to convert 50% of the total volume of retail payments into digital by 2023.

Furthermore, despite the Philippines lagging behind its ASEAN neighbours when it comes to attracting foreign direct investment, it has seen recent surges in national investment. The Filipino government will be investing $4.4 billion in digital infrastructure over the next six years. Priority sub-sectors include cybersecurity, the cloud, and telecommunications.

Membership

Merchant Community Membership

Are you a member of The Payments Association?

Member benefits include free tickets, discounts to more tickets, elevated brand visibility and more. Sign in to book tickets and find out more.

Welcome

Log in to access complimentary passes or discounts and access exclusive content as part of your membership. An auto-login link will be sent directly to your email.

Having trouble signing?

We use an auto-login link to ensure optimum security for your members hub. Simply enter your professional work e-mail address into the input area and you’ll receive a link to directly access your account.

First things first

Have you set up your Member account yet? If not, click here to do so.

Still not receiving your auto-login link?

Instead of using passwords, we e-mail you a link to log in to the site. This allows us to automatically verify you and apply member benefits based on your e-mail domain name.

Please click the button below which relates to the issue you’re having.

I didn't receive an e-mail

Tip: Check your spam

Sometimes our e-mails end up in spam. Make sure to check your spam folder for e-mails from The Payments Association

Tip: Check “other” tabs

Most modern e-mail clients now separate e-mails into different tabs. For example, Outlook has an “Other” tab, and Gmail has tabs for different types of e-mails, such as promotional.

Tip: Click the link within 60 minutes

For security reasons the link will expire after 60 minutes. Try submitting the login form again and wait a few seconds for the e-mail to arrive.

Tip: Only click once

The link will only work one time – once it’s been clicked, the link won’t log you in again. Instead, you’ll need to go back to the login screen and generate a new link.

Tip: Delete old login e-mails

Make sure you’re clicking the link on the most recent e-mail that’s been sent to you. We recommend deleting the e-mail once you’ve clicked the link.

Tip: Check your security policies

Some security systems will automatically click on links in e-mails to check for phishing, malware, viruses and other malicious threats. If these have been clicked, it won’t work when you try to click on the link.

Need to change your e-mail address?

For security reasons, e-mail address changes can only be complete by your Member Engagement Manager. Please contact the team directly for further help.

Still got a question?