INDIAN FINTECH FIRM SEES PH GROWTH POTENTIAL

Financial technology firm Intellect Design Arena expects the Philippine market for digital financial services and solutions to continue growing this year, amid rising demand from local financial institutions and the untapped potential of the unbanked sector.

Rajesh Saxena, CEO of the Global Consumer Banking arm of the publicly listed company, said that most Philippine-based banks today were looking at digital offerings, especially on ways on how to attract customers through entirely digital means.

“They want the ability to ‘onboard’ a customer completely digitally. Digital origination, when you do a loan and how can you digitize that front-end part,” he said in an interview, citing as well the current drive of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to digitize 50 percent of all retail payments in the country this year as a relevant context.

“So there is a lot of work that the banks are looking to do on the digital side, how do they digitize some of these areas,” he added.

Saxena also noted that Philippine banks are facing stiff competition nowadays, emphasizing the need to innovate their services to cater to the current needs of customers.

He added that the revenues of these financial institutions are also facing challenges this year, with most of them looking for ways on how to reduce cost—an issue that can be addressed through digitalization.

“A bank’s cost-to-income ratio is very important,” said the Intellect Design Arena executive.

“When you look at cost, a major part are your legacy costs, your technology costs,” he added, saying it makes the market attractive to them over the short-to medium-term.