THE country’s banking industry indeed moved beyond traditional financial services and became a key driver of economic growth, as well as digital transformation, financial inclusion and entrepreneurship among Filipinos, and nation-building by financing the country’s prime infrastructure projects.
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There was a time when banking was defined by a place: the branch, with its counters, forms and queues.
That model no longer applies.
Everyone now can pay a bill while commuting, send money to family from a phone, receive payment for a sale without handling cash, or set aside savings without visiting a bank.
Across the country, these small changes are adding up to a much larger transformation.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ 2025 Report on E-Payments Measurement offers a clear indication of its scale.
Digital payments accounted for 64.69 percent of total retail-payment volume in 2025, up from 57.45 percent in 2024.
Of the 6.09 billion retail transactions recorded during the year, 3.94 billion were digital.
That is not simply a change in consumer preference. It reflects the growing role of finance in everyday economic activity.
Banking is becoming less about a single product or location and more about the networks that allow people, businesses and institutions to participate in the economy.
It is helping move money faster, but it is also helping direct capital toward infrastructure, energy, entrepreneurship and community development. The most meaningful measure of this shift, to me, is what happens after financing is approved.
A loan can become a road, a water system, a public market or a flood-control project. It can help a manufacturer expand, support a renewable-energy facility, or provide a small business with enough working capital to accept a larger order.
This is particularly evident in the work of institutions with a development mandate.
DBP’s infra financing
The Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), for instance, has continued to direct financing toward infrastructure and logistics, small businesses, environmental projects and social services.
Through its ASENSO for Local Government Units program, DBP had approved P173.8 billion in loans for 456 projects as of December 2025.
The projects include flood-control and disaster-resilience facilities, water and sanitation systems, healthcare infrastructure, and public markets.
The significance of such financing is not always visible in a bank statement, as its impact is evident in communities that gain better services, in local governments that can undertake long-term projects, and in businesses that benefit from improved infrastructure.
The same principle applies to the private sector, where financing is increasingly being linked to the country’s energy and sustainability requirements.
As companies invest in power, transport, water and other essential systems, banks are being asked to assess not only the financial viability of a project but also its wider contribution to economic resilience.
BDO’s sustainable finance
On the other hand, BDO Unibank’s sustainable-finance program illustrates this direction.
The bank reported that it had funded P1.21 trillion in sustainable finance projects by 2025, covering sectors such as energy, infrastructure, water, transportation, and community development.
One of the projects associated with this effort is MTerra Solar, which involves a P150-billion financing facility.
The integrated solar and battery-storage development combines 3,500 megawatts of solar capacity with 4,500 megawatt-hours of battery storage and is projected to supply electricity to about 2.4 million households.
Projects of this scale show how banking institutions can participate in challenges that are national in scope.
Reliable and cleaner energy, for example, is not only an environmental concern, as it affects the cost of doing business, the stability of communities and the country’s ability to attract investment.
Yet the future of finance will not be built only through large facilities and major infrastructure projects.
It will also depend on whether smaller enterprises and individuals can participate in the formal economy.
The BSP’s figures show that merchant payments accounted for 74.31 percent of electronic payment transactions in 2025. Person-to-person payments represented another 17.70 percent.
Together with business-to-business supplier payments, these categories made up 95.69 percent of digital transactions.
Behind those figures are ordinary economic exchanges: a small store accepting a QR payment, a freelancer receiving money electronically, or a vendor paying a supplier without making a trip to a bank.
GCash makes deals easy
Digital platforms have helped make these transactions more accessible. GCash, for example, says its services have been used by 94 million Filipinos, while more than nine million have savings through GSave.
Its platform also serves merchants and social sellers, while its lending products provide another source of credit for eligible users.
That reach is particularly relevant to micro, small and medium enterprises, many of which have traditionally faced difficulty accessing formal financing.
In February 2026, the Asian Development Bank committed a $30-million loan to Fuse Financing, GCash’s lending arm, to expand digital credit for MSMEs, with 60 percent of the proceeds earmarked for women-owned enterprises.
The importance of this development lies not only in technology. It is in the possibility of reaching borrowers who may be operating outside the usual channels of finance, including small retailers, farmers, market vendors and first-time borrowers.
This is what banking beyond boundaries increasingly looks like.
It is development financing that helps a local government build. It is commercial financing that supports the energy systems needed for growth.
It is digital finance that allows a small enterprise to receive payments, manage cash flow and seek credit.
These activities may appear separate, but they are connected by the same question: how can capital be made more useful to the economy?
