Philippines emerges as battleground for faster, cheaper digital remittances
Keisha Ta-Asan
Philstar Global
11 January 2026
MANILA, Philippines — As the Philippines cements its position as one of the world’s largest remittance destinations, global financial institutions are doubling down on efforts to support the country’s rapidly evolving digital payments landscape.
J.P. Morgan sees the Philippines at the center of Asia’s cross-border remittance growth, driven by the surge of digital wallets, instant payment schemes and new consumer expectations for speed and transparency.
Akhil Devmurari, fintech sector head for Asia Pacific at J.P. Morgan Payments, said the Philippines continues to stand out in the region’s payment corridors.
“Philippines has one of the largest inbound remittance corridors,” he said. “Last year (remittances) were close to $40 billion. It’s a huge value and that is continuing to grow.”Building rails across ASEAN
The bank’s regional footprint provides the infrastructure needed to support this expansion. Devmurari said the global investment bank’s payments organization is present in 14 markets including Singapore, Hong Kong and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
This presence allows the bank to offer local clearing access, local accounts and execution services, particularly for clients moving money into remittance-heavy markets like the Philippines.
Devmurari said his team focuses on supporting regulated payment companies, many of which are driving today’s cross-border innovation.
“Our approach is to help our clients provide cash management services, payments capabilities where they can leverage banks’ rails to collect money from the senders,” he said. This includes services that cover “collections, safeguarding funds, foreign exchange and payout services.”
With remittance flows into the Philippines still dominated by bank transfers, the push toward instant payments and wallet-based settlements is accelerating. Devmurari noted that the demand for speed has shifted drastically.
He added that the bank is enhancing its country-level capabilities to support this shift.
“We are subscribing, or already have access, to local real-time payment rails so we can enable faster transaction processing for our fintech companies,” he said.
For the Philippines, this opens the door to more seamless last-mile payouts using the country’s instant transfer system. The next frontier, he said, is pay-to-wallet capabilities. “Pay-to-wallet capabilities is something that we think will also add value and is an evolving area.”
Financial inclusion drives wallet growth
Beyond remittances, wallet providers are accelerating financial inclusion across ASEAN — a theme particularly relevant for the Philippines, where millions remain unbanked.
Devmurari said wallet companies have become “very powerful” by using technology for know your customer onboarding and remote access.
“People who are in remote areas are not easily able to access the financial ecosystem but they can actually do it by leveraging individual wallet capabilities,” he said.
ASEAN still has about 55 percent of its population unbanked or underbanked. Wallets, he said, are filling this gap and J.P. Morgan’s role is to support liquidity and payout rails behind these platforms.
“We feel that we are going hand in hand with the fintech companies and wallet providers to tackle the financial inclusion part.”
The bank sees growing momentum in southbound corridors such as India to ASEAN and China to ASEAN, but the Philippines remains a critical destination market.
“Middle East and the Philippines is a huge opportunity,” Devmurari said, noting the continued expansion of Filipino worker deployments abroad.
He also highlighted the growing cross-border connectivity of Philippine fintechs.
“As the fintech community grows, the cross-border connectivity and cross-border connectivity from the corridors perspective, whether Middle East or Philippines or other ASEAN markets into the Philippines, I think that’s going to be a significant opportunity,” he said.
Efforts like Project Nexus, which links real-time payment systems across ASEAN, are expected to further boost speed and transparency.
But as digitalization advances, Devmurari stressed the need to address emerging threats.
The future, he said, is about balancing innovation and risk. “On one hand, yes, the growth is important, real-time payments are already here, wallet capabilities are already there. At the same time we need to strike a balance between risk management and digitalization.”
