ANALYSIS: By the end of 2024, approximately 80% of fintech services will be accessed through mobile apps

The digital lending segment saw the largest growth in terms of application downloads during the first half of the year.

According to new research from consumer credit agency Digido, the percentage of people in the Philippines who are 15 years of age and older who use mobile apps for financial technologies may rise to 79.5% by the end of 2024, or over 66.4 million unique users1.

It is anticipated that the Digital Commerce area will account for 34% of the growth in said adoption rate, with Digital Wallets contributing 27.2% and Digital Banking 8.6%.

Adults in the Philippines adopted fintech services on their phones at a rate of 76.2% (63.1 million unique users) between September 2018 and June 2042. During that time, 617 million downloads of fintech mobile applications were made in the nation. With 31.4% of downloads, digital commerce was the most popular industry, followed by digital wallets (21.7%) and digital loans (20.3%). Digital banking (7%), digital personal finance apps (8%), and digital payments and transfers (11.6%) made up the remaining amount.

Solely examining absolute figures during the first half of 2024, the largest growth of downloads was seen in the digital lending sector at 25.4 million, followed by digital commerce at 13.5 million and digital wallets at 12.2 million. Digital payments and transfers, digital banking and digital personal finance applications garnered 7.8 million, 6.2 million and 4 million, respectively.

On average, Digido observes that the number of downloads is constantly growing at a rate of approximately 10.26% per half year. Over the first six months of 2024, the digital banking sector experienced the highest growth rate of downloads at 22.34%, followed by digital payments and transfers (17.72%) and digital lending (16.81%).

Commenting on the analysis, Digido business development manager Rose Arreco explained: “The positive numbers seen in digital lending, digital wallets and digital commerce can be attributed to growing trust in these segments and its natural synergies with one another. As strong demand for fintech in the Philippines continues, so too Filipinos’ expectations on convenience, interoperability and improved user experience across these applications.”

“We believe that the Philippines remains on course towards widespread digitalization, with its ‘fintech-ization’ far from weakening. Collaboration within and outside of the industry remains paramount for this growth to be realized at a faster rate,” Arreco added.