UnionDigital Bank plans to use blockchain, digital assets to target underserved Filipinos
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The Philippines is one of Asia’s fastest growing economies and a leader in adopting emerging technologies. However, it still lags behind its neighbors in Southeast Asia when it comes to accessing important financial services for the people. UnionDigital Bank is at the forefront of leveraging technology to serve marginalized Filipinos. As Mike Singh tells CoinGeek, it plans to integrate blockchain and digital assets soon.
“We are one of the five licensed digital banks in the Philippines by the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas),” Singh, Chief Commercial Officer of UnionDigital, told CoinGeek Backstage reporter Claire Celdran on the sidelines of the CFO Summit in Manila.
UnionDigital is backed by UnionBank, a top ten bank in the country, making it the only digital bank backed by a universal commercial bank. This gives it an advantage as it can use the customer data of the parent bank to offer personalized digital banking services to customers, Singh said.
The Philippines has made great strides in its march towards universal financial inclusion. But, “we are one of the laggards regionally in terms of bank populations…about 70% of the adult population is underserved or unbanked. There are less than 10 million credit cards in a country of 70 million adults.”
UnionDigital wants to bridge this gap. The main focus, for now, is to use credit services for the lower half of the income pyramid. Singh revealed that blockchain and digital currencies are among the technologies the bank intends to tap into in the future.
“There are plans in our roadmap to have a crypto exchange at UnionDigital. We are all smart contract based. We have digital identities, which is another product we are developing. Ultimately we want to provide services to crypto and play-to -earn communities,” he said.
The Philippines is a world leader in monetization games, and this community will need dedicated banking services, a niche UnionDigital intends to exploit. The bank plans to offer a service where users can pay directly with their digital assets, but merchants will receive the payment in fiat.
Singh further revealed that the bank’s blockchain plans will materialize by 2025 as the current focus is on making money…we will use the capital generated from these businesses to fund the future of Web3.
See: UnionBank of the Philippines Remains Relevant Using Blockchain Technology
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