The country’s fintech and digital banking players are entering a new phase of cooperation, as industry groups unveiled coordinated programs designed to make financial health a measurable outcome of digitalization rather than a long-term aspiration.
At the Singapore Fintech Festival 2025, the Digital Bank Association of the Philippines (DiBA PH) and FintechAlliance.ph, in collaboration with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), rolled out three initiatives that bring together digital banks, fintech firms, and e-wallet providers under a shared framework for financial well-being.
The announcement comes amid improving results from the 2nd DiBA PH Financial Health Survey, which showed a steady rise in the Financial Health Index (FHI) of digital bank customers to 62 in 2025 from 56 in 2024.
The data suggest that more Filipinos now feel they can handle daily expenses, recover from shocks, and begin planning further ahead, although disparities persist.
Industry groups are shifting focus from digital access alone toward deeper behavioral and structural goals.
One of the newly launched measures is the 2028 Digital Finance Industry Roadmap, a guidepost for the sector’s “80×80 by 2028” target, where 80 percent of adults hold active accounts and 80 percent of payments are digital.
The document outlines policy, regulatory, and infrastructure reforms needed to expand open finance, strengthen credit data-sharing, and improve digital trust and cybersecurity readiness.
Another initiative, the Industry Financial Health Program, aims to integrate financial-health indicators and behavioral nudges into digital products to help Filipinos build resilience gradually.
A third effort—the ASEAN Financial Health Survey Collaboration—seeks to harmonize financial health measurement across the region, with the BSP providing guidance.
“Through this collaboration, we are aligning fintechs and digital banks around a shared vision for financial well-being. It is a call for collective leadership toward a more financially resilient Philippines,” said Lito Villanueva, founding chairman of FintechAlliance.ph.
Nate Clarke, DiBA PH vice president and GoTyme Bank CEO, said the roadmap lays the groundwork for more unified efforts.
“The Digital Finance Roadmap is a shared starting point,” he said. “It gives us a common language for what we aim to achieve, how we can collaborate, and how we measure progress.”
Maya Bank CEO and DiBA PH president Angelo Madrid said the partnership marks a shift from discussing access to pursuing measurable improvements.
“Turning these insights into design, regulation, and shared accountability is how we turn inclusion into measurable, lasting impact,” he said.
