The adoption rate of financial technology in the Philippines among the population aged 15 years old and over through mobile apps may increase to 72.2% or 59.3 million users by the end of 2023, according to a new report from consumer credit service Digido.

The maximum growth of this indicator is expected to come from the Payments & Transfers segment (+17.6%), followed by E-Wallets (+4.9%), Digital Banking (+4.3%), Digital Investments (+3.7%) and Digital Lending (+0.9%).

Last year, the adoption rate of fintech services among the population aged 15 years old and over in the Philippines reached 69.3% from 64.4% in 2021. Similar to the region as a whole, the largest contributor is the e-commerce sector, with adoption among adults close to 100% in the Philippines at the end of 2022.

Of the 867 actively used fintech applications in the Philippines, the Digital Banking and E-Wallets segments are the most popular — with 163 (18.8%) and 134 (15.5%), respectively, followed by Payments & Transfers with 104 (11.9%), Wealth Management with 86 (9.9%) and Digital Lending with 84 (9.6%). 

The Payments & Transfers segment exhibited the highest download growth rate at 11.3% per month from 2018 to 2022, followed by Business Management (10.7%) and Financial Advisors (8.4%).

In terms of user growth in the past five years, main contributors to the development of the fintech industry in the Philippines are E-Wallets (+1026%), Digital Lending (+330%) and E-commerce (+222%).

“The findings from our report indicate that the inertial movements towards the “fintechization” of the population is going from strength to strength. The country’s fintech infrastructure is also showing high adaptability to ever-emerging challenges, mainly due to a large domestic market and progressive government support,” Digido country manager Farit Shakirov said. “As it stands, there remains opportunity for the fintech industry to maintain momentum and build towards a more vibrant ecosystem by cultivating further trust in their services by providing seamless, communicable user experiences and fruitful collaborations.”