State of open banking phillippines

Key Observations

• BSP has implemented Circular No. 1122, laying the foundation for Open Finance in the Philippines.

• The Open Finance PH Pilot launched in 2023 continues through 2025 with real-world third-party integrations.

• Focus has shifted from traditional open banking to broader open finance, including insurance, pensions, and investments.

Use Cases Gaining Traction

• Credit scoring using transaction data for underserved and MSME customers.

• Digital onboarding via reusable KYC and account aggregation.

• Budgeting tools and dashboards powered by real-time financial data.

• Recurring payments & bill aggregation through API-connected wallets and banks.

Philippines Open Finance in 2025: A Ground-Level View of a Nation's Digital Leap

As someone who’s spent the last few years watching open banking evolve across Southeast Asia, I can say this confidently: the Philippines isn’t just experimenting anymore—it’s building. In 2025, what’s happening in the country goes beyond regulatory pilots and sandbox schemes. We’re seeing the early stages of what might become one of Asia’s most inclusive, innovation-friendly open finance ecosystems.

Let’s Call It What It Is: Open Finance, Not Just Open Banking

The state of open banking Phillippines, unlike some markets that confine the conversation to bank account access, the Philippines has gone all in. The BSP’s terminology matters here—“Open Finance”, not open banking. Why? Because what’s being enabled isn’t just access to savings or checking accounts, but access to payments, credit, insurance, pensions, and even investments.

This makes sense in a market where formal banking is just one of many channels people use to manage money. Filipinos rely on e-wallets, pawnshops, micro-insurance apps, remittance counters, and buy-now-pay-later schemes. A narrowly scoped open banking regime would’ve missed the point entirely.

Regulation Isn’t Just Theory Anymore

Back in 2021, it was easy to be skeptical. Circular 1122 had the right ideas—customer consent, API-driven data sharing—but there wasn’t much action yet. Fast forward to 2025 and we’re seeing a significant shift.

The Open Finance PH Pilot that began in 2023 has grown from a controlled test to a meaningful staging ground. Third-party providers (TPPs), banks, and e-money issuers are now sharing real data—with customer consent—and testing real-world use cases. And this isn’t being driven solely by fintechs. Traditional players like UnionBank and RCBC are involved, working alongside API-native digital banks like Maya and Tonik.

Regulators are also not sitting on the sidelines. BSP has maintained its Open Finance Oversight Committee, supported by advisory groups and multilateral partners like the IFC and World Bank. These aren’t checkbox relationships—they’re shaping governance and global alignment.

Payments Are Leading the Way

If there’s one area where open finance is already making real impact, it’s payments. The adoption of QR Ph—a standardized, EMV-compliant national QR code system—is nothing short of transformative.

By 2025, QR Ph is everywhere: wet markets, sari-sari stores, tricycles, online sellers. The brilliance isn’t just in ubiquity; it’s in interoperability. Whether it’s a Maya wallet scanning a QR from GCash, or a LandBank customer paying a private school fee, the experience is smooth.

It’s also built on top of solid rails: InstaPay and PESONet have grown dramatically in usage and reliability. These systems are now processing trillions of pesos monthly. And now that real-time payments are standard, the next step—API-triggered transactions—is becoming the norm for fintechs and increasingly for banks.

I worked with QRPH standards and enabling this for a corporate bank in Phillippines if you require something similar get in touch with me at Brankas

What Use Cases Are Actually Working?

Let’s cut through the hype and talk about what’s actually being done:

• Digital Onboarding: Instead of uploading documents or answering endless KYC questions, users can opt to verify via an existing bank or e-wallet relationship.

• Credit Scoring: Lenders now pull permissioned transaction histories from multiple sources. A user’s digital wallet history, utility bills, and savings account trends are all fair game.

• Budgeting & Finance Apps: Aggregators are finally useful. With APIs, they pull live balances and categorize spending, enabling real-time dashboards for users.

• SME Tools: Small businesses use connected platforms to track income and expenses across multiple accounts. This is proving especially valuable in loan applications.

These aren’t perfect yet, but they are live, not theory.

Digital Banks Are Proving the Model

One of the best things BSP did was to create a separate licensing path for digital banks. This wasn’t a cosmetic label—it came with real requirements around capital, digital onboarding, and cybersecurity. The result? A cohort of banks that aren’t encumbered by legacy systems.

As of 2025, we’ve got players like Tonik, Maya Bank, UnionDigital, and GoTyme actively deploying open finance products. Whether it’s instant salary advances, flexible savings, or API-driven personal finance tools, these banks are iterating fast—and using APIs to build partnerships with fintechs, merchants, and even government programs.

The FinTech Alliance Is Making the Difference

In many countries, industry bodies are bureaucratic. In the Philippines, the FinTech Alliance PH is doing the real work. It acts as a quasi-regulatory interface, promoting standards, ethics, and even dispute resolution mechanisms for third-party providers.

Their involvement is part of why the Open Finance PH pilot hasn’t turned into a messy free-for-all. There’s structure. There’s process. And most importantly, there’s a shared mission: to make open finance work for Filipinos, not just for corporate innovation teams.

Of Course, There Are Still Frictions

Let’s be honest. It’s not all smooth sailing.

• Legacy banks are lagging. While digital banks are thriving, many traditional players are slow to modernize their core infrastructure.

• Consent fatigue is real. Customers are bombarded with permission screens. Without proper UX design, people either blindly click or opt out.

• Standardization is still emerging. Not all APIs are created equal. There’s fragmentation in data fields, payloads, and even basic authentication schemes.

• TPP accreditation is slow. Startups complain that getting access is bureaucratic and costly. This threatens to stifle grassroots innovation.

But even with these challenges, the trajectory is positive.

Inclusion Is the North Star

BSP has made this clear: open finance is not about technology for technology’s sake. It’s about inclusion. The targets are ambitious—70% of Filipino adults financially included, and 50% of payments digital by the end of 2025.

This isn’t marketing fluff. We’re seeing government cash aid programs, education grants, and microfinance disbursements routed through open API layers. The more inclusive the rails, the more credible the promise of open finance becomes.

And with 6 million Filipinos still working abroad, cross-border potential is huge. Remittance platforms are starting to integrate directly with domestic wallets via API—cutting fees and boosting speed.

What Comes Next?

If I had to make some calls:

• Mandatory participation is coming. What’s voluntary now will become policy. Big banks will be forced to open up under strict consent rules.

• API monetization models will mature. Right now, most access is free or subsidized. We’ll see pricing tiers, freemium access, and SLAs emerge.

• Cross-border collaboration will accelerate. BSP is already talking with regional peers about QR interoperability and regional data corridors.

• Embedded finance will explode. Insurance on checkout pages. Credit offers inside HR platforms. All driven by API-enabled flows.

We’re just getting started.

Final Thought: It’s Not About APIs—It’s About Agency

Too often, open banking is sold as a tech upgrade. In reality, it’s about giving people control over their financial lives. When done right, open finance isn’t just an industry milestone—it’s a human one.

In the Philippines, this isn’t theory. It’s visible, tangible, and happening faster than many expected. The future isn’t being imposed—it’s being built collaboratively, and most importantly, it’s being built with the people it’s meant to serve.

If other markets are watching, they should pay close attention. Because what’s emerging in the Philippines might just be the playbook for how open finance should be done in the real world.