Program promoting inclusive digital finance in PH launched

A new initiative designed to increase local financial institutions’ access to inclusive digital finance has been launched, the FinTech Alliance.ph and Alibaba Cloud announced on Wednesday.

The Fintech Industry Sandbox Program, the first-of-its-kind in support of massive digitalization initiatives of the country’s regulators –the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), enables local businesses in the finance sector to explore the use of advanced cloud computing products and financial technology (fintech) services from Alibaba Cloud in a risk-free testing environment.

Under the program, each eligible Philippine business will receive up to USD10,000 in cloud coupons, which can be used to adopt Alibaba Cloud’s proven solutions, as well as access to complementary cloud training, technical and industry expertise and regulatory compliance guidance.

“We created this program with Alibaba Cloud to support emerging digital technologies, which help address current challenges in the financial industry. With more financial companies joining this program, we are glad to see the acceleration of access to inclusive digital finance in the country,” said Lito Villanueva, founding chairman of the FinTech Alliance.ph and chief innovation and inclusion officer and executive vice president of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC).

Allen Guo, country manager for the Philippines of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said Alibaba Cloud and the FinTech Alliance are working hard to create a business-friendly environment for local fintech companies to deploy digital finance solutions tailored to their needs.

“And this program is an important step towards this goal. We are excited to collaborate with companies in the Philippine fintech sector and further contribute to their development,” he said.

Beginning this month, the program will be accepting applications from BSP-supervised financial institutions who are registered with the SEC and meet eligibility criteria. Interested organizations can send their applications to fintechallianceph@alibaba-inc.com.

As the leading public cloud service provider in Asia Pacific, Alibaba Cloud is one of the founding members of the FinTech Alliance.ph, offering its expertise in cloud technology and providing solutions around elastic compute, database, security, storage and network services.

It is also developing machine learning and data analytics capabilities to address challenges and unlock opportunities for companies across the fintech space.

FinTech Alliance.ph is the premier trade association of digital players in the country’s digital finance sector.

Motivated by the demand for digital solutions and the need for greater financial inclusion, the country’s fintech sector has sustained rapid growth in recent years.

The Philippine central bank forecasts that the share of digital transactions value will reach at least 50 percent by 2023.