Basic Energy Corporation plans to develop 500 megawatts (MW) of wind and 500 MW of solar energy projects by 2030 as part of its long-term strategy to expand its renewable energy portfolio, according to Vice Chairman and CEO Oscar L. de Venecia, Jr.

Wind and solar projects in the pipeline

Basic Energy is currently working on a 50-MW wind power project in Mabini, Batangas, alongside RDG Wind Energy, a joint venture with Japanese renewable energy developer Renova.

The P5-billion wind farm covers 4,860 hectares and is expected to be completed by 2027. The project will consist of at least 10 wind turbine generators. De Venecia said the company is focused on making the 50 MW project operational first. Once it’s running, the company will assess the wind resource data to determine if expansion is feasible, noting that there is still space along the ridges of the site for potential growth.

In addition to the Mabini project, Basic Energy recently secured exclusive rights to develop the Balayan wind project near the Calatagan peninsula. The project was awarded under a service contract from the Department of Energy (DOE) and is expected to add 168 MW to the Luzon grid’s generation capacity. Basic Energy plans to check wind strength in the area during the pre-development stage and is required to declare the ability to produce a profit in the next five years. If completed, the Balayan project could increase the company’s total wind capacity to around 350-400 MW.

Basic Energy is also advancing plans for a 155-MW onshore wind project between Iloilo and Antique. The project recently received approval and will increase further the company’s renewable energy footprint.

The company is also looking at nearshore wind projects, including facilities providing up to 150 MW in Calatagan, Batangas, and 100 MW in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte. Combined, the three projects represent an estimated investment of $760 million.

“We will be commencing the wind resource assessment as soon as we have obtained a favourable system impact study from NGCP (National Grid Corp. of the Philippines). Once we have established that connectivity, we will go full swing already with resource assessment,” de Venecia said.

Expanding solar and clean energy infrastructure

Basic Energy’s interests include an increase to its solar generation operations. The company has applied to build two solar projects in Negros and Bataan with a combined capacity of 90 MW. If approved, these would support the company’s goal of balancing wind and solar output to create what it feels is a more stable renewable energy portfolio.

Basic Energy’s investments include clean energy infrastructure. Earlier this year, the company launched an electric vehicle charging station along Edsa. The EV station is part of a broader effort to promote electric transport and reduce emissions in the sector.

Strategic growth in the renewable energy market

Basic Energy’s growing wind and solar portfolio is part of the company’s objective increase its position in renewable energy. De Venecia said the company’s priorities include increasing generation capacity and integrating new technologies. “We want to be a long-term participant in the energy sector. We have been here since the first discovery of oil in the Philippines. We were part of that. Now, things have changed, and people are looking at different [sources] now. We want to be a part of that. As we keep growing, we also want to see where we can participate in bringing newer technologies later on.”

The post Basic Energy targets 1-gigawatt renewable energy capacity by 2030 appeared first on TechWire Asia.

Over the past few years, Southeast Asia has witnessed significant cyberattacks and data breaches. In fact, cybersecurity incidents in Southeast Asia continue to increase, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The IBM Security’s Cost of a Data Breach report showed that data breaches in the region reached an all-time high value of US$3.05 million in 2022, marking a 6% increase from the previous year. Detection and escalation costs jumped 15% over the same timeframe, representing the highest portion of breach costs, and indicating a shift towards more complex breach investigations.

Since then, most countries in the region have taken more steps to boost their cybersecurity defenses. Governments have also amended and introduced new laws to ensure businesses take cybersecurity a lot more seriously. There’s also been collaboration across the region, especially in terms of sharing threat intelligence on potential cyberthreats.

At the same time, almost all industries have been targeted by cybercriminals. However, there have been increased numbers of cyberattacks targeting government agencies, financial institutions and the healthcare industry.

Research from Check Point Software Technologies reveals the healthcare sector experienced an average of 1,684 attacks per week in Q1 2023 – a year-on-year increase of 22%. That makes healthcare the third most targeted industry in 2023, ahead of finance, insurance and communications. Healthcare organizations have extremely valuable data, and the growing complexity of healthcare IT networks provides cyberthreat actors with a variety of potential attack vectors.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation cyberattack

Given the surge of attacks in the healthcare industry, it would only make sense for organizations dealing with healthcare data to boost their cybersecurity defenses. After all, the healthcare industry not only deals with high volumes of data but also uses numerous technologies today, all of which can be easily targeted by cybercriminals.

Despite this, it seems the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation did not take the matter seriously enough. According to reports by AFP, hackers have stolen the personal data of potentially millions of people from the Philippines’s national health insurer, which has urged members to change their passwords after the “staggering” cyberattack.

The government-owned agency is tasked with overseeing the healthcare of Filipinos in the country. Formed in 1995, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation is meant to help pay for the care of the sick and subsidize medical payments for those who can’t afford it.

As of June 30, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation had over 59 million direct and indirect contributors, representing more than half of the Philippines’ population. The hackers released some of the data on the dark web, showing health memos and other information that a top government official described as ‘confidential.’

The cybersecurity incident was discovered after staff were unable to access a number of computers on September 22. The computers also displayed a message saying hackers had locked the machines and encrypted the data. The insurer shut down the affected systems to try and stop the attack from spreading, slowing, or entirely shutting down some online services for days.

What made the news even more shocking was a statement from a senior official of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, revealing that the company lacked antivirus software at the time of the attack. The official acknowledged a degree of negligence on the Corporation’s part, citing the expiration of antivirus software as a potential vulnerability that may have facilitated the breach.

Investigations are ongoing

Following the cybersecurity incident, the National Privacy Commission (NPC) of the Philippines initiated an immediate, proactive investigation into potential violations of the Data Privacy Act of 2012 by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and its officials.

The NPC said that on October 6, the Complaints and Investigation Division of the NPC completed its initial analysis of 650GB worth of compressed files originating from a data dump claimed by the Medusa group.

“Upon extraction, these files revealed a staggering 734GB worth of data, including personal and sensitive personal information. In light of these findings, the NPC has launched a sua sponte investigation to ascertain the full scope of this breach, identify the responsible officials, and recommend prosecution to the fullest extent permissible by law.

The NPC will leave no stone unturned in its investigation into the potential negligence of officials and explore whether any efforts have been made to conceal pertinent information,” stated the NPC.

AFP also reported that the hackers demanded US$300,000 to restore access to the computers and delete the stolen data. MedusaLocker, first detected in late 2019, has been primarily used to target healthcare organizations, and its creators took particular advantage of the emergency situation during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a US government report.

The ransomware has been sold to criminal actors. A US government cybersecurity advisory indicated that its creator receives a portion of any ransom paid. It was not clear if the Medusa group identified by the Philippines government is the creator of MedusaLocker, or an entity that purchased the malware.

The government has refused to pay any ransom and the hackers have now started releasing data from the stolen files. Since then, there have been calls for the government to conduct an audit of its cyber-defenses.

A Philippine Health Insurance Corporation official explains how the hack could have occurred in the video below.

Biggest cybersecurity incident in Southeast Asia?

While there have been no official figures on how many accounts were actually compromised by the hackers, the incident is definitely one of the biggest data breaches in the Philippines to date. The last major cyber-incident in the Philippines involved the hacking of the country’s Commission of Elections in 2016.

But over the years, the Philippines has seen increasing cybersecurity incidents. While investments in cybersecurity have also increased in the country, the insurance provider’s explanation that it did not renew its cybersecurity measures clearly indicates that some companies are not prioritizing cybersecurity as they should.

Given the increased digitalization in the country, cybersecurity needs to be a priority for all organizations, regardless of which industries they are from. As the NPC puts it, it stands firm in its resolve to combat any actions that contravene the Data Privacy Act of 2012, whether within government or private institutions. The NPC has also warned the public not to download, share, or possess any of the data that has been compromised.

A costly cybersecurity lesson for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation

The cybersecurity incident at the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation could have been avoided if the company had renewed its security solutions. The insurer could also have significantly boosted its cybersecurity defenses, given that it deals with sensitive data on a daily basis. While it remains to be seen why the renewal was delayed or if other reasons contributed to the breach, one thing is for certain – the damage is already done.

Businesses need to maintain constant awareness of their cybersecurity status. That entails staying informed about their cybersecurity policies, renewal dates, and extent of coverage. Organizations should also check their systems for patches and flaws that require updating. If companies face a talent shortage in managing these aspects, they can consider outsourcing their cybersecurity to managed service providers.

Either way, taking the right proactive measures in cybersecurity could end up saving companies a lot more in the long run. Reactive cybersecurity options can also help them detect and recover their systems a lot faster. It’s also crucial to have a sufficient backup system in place to ensure there is minimal disruption to the business.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation should be both proof of the need for effective cybersecurity, and a warning to businesses to keep their protection up to date.

The post Could the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation cyberattack have been avoided? appeared first on TechWire Asia.

In Asia, the 5G rollout has been proliferating. According to US networking giant Cisco, India, the Philippines, and Japan, will be at the forefront of 5G network rollouts this year. Taking a closer look at the Philippines, although 5G remains a small fraction of the total user base, the take-up rate has been increasing in recent years, with Globe Telecom, a major provider of telecommunication services in the country, being at the forefront.

To give an idea of how Globe is driving the adoption of 5G technology in the country, in 2022 alone, Globe more than doubled its 5G coverage, ending the year with 5G connectivity in 70 cities and towns across the Philippines, compared to just 29 in 2021. The company also recorded over 3.9 million devices connected to its 5G network as of December 2022.

Globe’s focus is simple–to deliver 5G outdoor coverage to more areas in the Philippines. The feat is nothing short of impressive: as of 2022, Globe has reached 97.2% of the National Capital Region and 90.2% of key cities in the Philippines, including Visayas and Mindanao.

The company also ended 2022 with 2,267 new 5G sites nationwide to provide more consumers and businesses with faster download and upload speeds, low latency, and improved reliability. Telecommunications is only part of Globe’s portfolio. Like its peers worldwide, Globe’s biggest challenge is growth, which is tapering off as traditional mobile service has matured.

Globe’s venture into digital solutions has also produced remarkable results with GCash, the only Philippine unicorn valued at over US$2 billion. Tech Wire Asia had the chance to interview Globe Group President & CEO Ernest Cu, who shared how GCash’s industry-changing innovations have improved the lives of Filipinos and spurred inclusive economic growth.

Cu also touched on why the company doubled its 5G footprint over the past year and is reducing its capital expenditure while planning to continue “deleveraging” in 2023.

Despite Globe doubling its 5G footprint in 2022, why was CapEx budget reduced this year by 30%?

Globe’s capital expenditure investments peaked in 2021 and 2022 due to the opportunistic network investments we made to take advantage of the easing of the permitting process during the pandemic. 

Given these significant investments made in the past few years and the focus on fiber port utilization versus rollout, we expect capex intensity to significantly lessen starting in 2023 to US$1.3 Billion or 30% lower than the prior year. 

After years of capital investment to keep up with customer usage demands and the surge in home broadband demand caused by the pandemic, we are now concentrating on optimizing these investments. As a result, Globe has increased the freedom to make targeted investments with considerably lower cash capex over the next two years while preserving capital efficiency. 

This will extend to the relevant digital solutions and services of Globe Group of Companies: G-Cash (fintech/e-wallet) and Konsulta MD (health-tech). This step is designed to optimize capital expenditure in the coming years by focusing on making the most out of existing fiber assets and leveraging partnerships with telcos for maximum tower builds. 

At the same time, Globe is also harnessing the best of our existing infrastructure and shifting to a more cost-efficient network architecture that will enable faster rollout of 5G services across the country. 

With lower CapEx spending, Globe can focus on other aspects, such as customer experience and service innovation. This move allows us to meet the growing demand for better digital services and provide customers with the best possible experience. This move is a sound one that will enable us to keep up with the rapidly evolving telecommunication market in the Philippines. 

Ultimately, we aim to remain flexible and agile enough to adjust our strategy as the telecommunications landscape changes while still providing consumers with consistently reliable services.

How big is Globe’s 5G customer base currently?  Has the price drop in mobile devices encouraged the adoption?

Our 5G customer base is consistently increasing by 6% every month, where more than half of our subscribers are passion-driven and thriving Pinoys from class DE. 

Although accessibility to 5G devices may encourage adoption, it is not the sole driving force for customers to switch. The key is to create products that add value and address specific customer challenges. As a purpose-driven company, this has been our focus.

In addition to our efforts, we are exploring opportunities to expand into healthcare, education, finance, and entertainment, where emerging needs exist. We are dedicated to meeting those needs. 

The Philippines had a goal of “50% or half of all transactions should be digital by 2023,” according to the country’s central bank. As an enabler, how far is the country from achieving that goal? 

A recent statement by the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) governor of the Philippines mentioned that we are still on track to hit this mark, especially with the growth of e-wallets such as GCash. GCash, in particular, has already grown its user base to 79 million users, with daily transactions going as high as 24 million. 

This is an excellent indicator that the Philippines is indeed on track to achieving its digital transformation goals. In parallel, we also see a vast improvement in the percentage of banked Filipinos. Before the pandemic, only 29% of Filipinos had a bank/savings account. Now with the help of Fintech, especially GCash, this has grown to 56%. We are proud to make an impact as the National Champion for Financial Services.

How much has GCash grown since the pandemic? 

In this time of unprecedented insecurity, especially during the height of lockdowns, GCash emerged as a vital source for everyday needs and was one of the few services that operated reliably — it has served as the Filipinos’ lifeline. Our digital finance services became a silver lining as we helped keep the economy going. 

Our customer base has seen a 30% surge in the past year alone and an increase of 250% since pre-pandemic times. 

Is Globe planning to make GCash a superapp? 

GCash is an unparalleled service in the Philippines’ finance industry. It is considered a super app. In addition to offering quick and secure payments and transfers, it provides its users with many other services that make daily life more manageable: fair loans for all, budget-friendly investment opportunities, and accessible insurance policies – not to mention encouraging green living through sustainability initiatives. 

Is there still much room to promote digital payments at the regional and provincial levels?

GCash is not only expanding at the provincial level in the Philippines. We are extending our services internationally. To further empower Filipinos to take control of their finances when working overseas, we recently announced that GCash is now available for international sims in Japan, Italy and Australia, and, coming soon, the US. 

Filipinos overseas can easily send money, buy loads, and pay their families’ bills back home. Further, our strategic partnership with Alipay+ allows our customers worldwide to pay using their GCash app, offering real-time Foreign Exchange transactions free of service charges. The rollout is available in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, Germany, Italy, France, and the UK. 

The post Here’s how Globe is advancing 5G and e-wallet adoption in the Philippines appeared first on TechWire Asia.

Multiple businesses investing in the Philipines has made it one of the countries with highest growth globally, driving the rise of data center investments.

According to Arizton’s most recent research report, the development of the Philippines data center market has gained traction in recent years. The main drivers of industry expansion include COVID-19, the rising use of content delivery networks (CDNs), gaming, and internet usage.

Manila is the most popular site for data center operators in the Philippines, with 12 distinct third-party data center facilities making up more than 75% of the country’s current power capacity.

As the country looks to accelerate the development of data centers in Manila, one of the fastest-growing data center platforms in Asia, Digital Edge (Singapore) Holdings Pte. Ltd., has announced its new 10MW data center in the city will be ready-for-service (“RFS”) from March 1, 2023. When this data center is completed, it will represent Digital Edge’s entry into the Philippine market and advance the company’s goal of closing the digital divide in Southeast Asia’s most dynamic economies.

NARRA1 is a joint venture with the Threadborne Group, a local family office with an emphasis on real estate and technology. It seeks to fill any unmet demand from the Philippines’ data center colocation industry, which Structure Research predicts will reach US$ 313 million in revenue by 2026 after seeing double-digit growth (22% CAGR). According to Digital Edge, several significant domestic internet service providers have already made reservations for the new data center.

In line with the company’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy, the new facility will be the most energy and water-efficient data center on the market, with a market-leading PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1.2 and a WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness) of 1.355 at the ideal operating temperature. The building will also be triple certified with LEED Gold, BERDE, and EDGE certifications.

Samuel Lee, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Edge stated that the completion of NARRA1 is Digital Edge’s first significant greenfield design and build project since its founding, marks a turning point in developing their regional platform throughout Asia.

“As we come online in the Philippines for the first time with this state-of-the-art facility, we further enhance our presence in Southeast Asia and progress our mission to bridge the digital divide by building the essential, sustainable digital ecosystems of the future,” continued Lee.

Vic Barrios, Country Manager for Digital Edge in the Philippines, added that the company is honored to make its Manila debut with this facility, giving the Philippines the deserving and much-needed digital infrastructure.

“Most importantly, NARRA1 raises the bar in terms of sustainable design and operational efficiency, and we hope it becomes the new gold standard for green data centers in the Philippines and beyond,” says Barrios, who is thrilled about the company’s new data centers’ debut in the country.

The Philippines drawing attention from data center operators

The interest in the Philippines isn’t shocking. Around 76 million people use the internet in the country each day, logging in for an average of more than 10 hours. The statistic provides a strong foundation to support data consumption, which is anticipated to continue growing as the future data demand is expected to increase due to increased technology usage.

Data center operators are collaborating with regional operators to access the Philippines market.

In February of this year, Space DC and JLL announced their partnership to invest more than US$ 700 million in a 72-megawatt project in Cainta, Rizal. In the same month, YCO Cloud Centers, a joint venture between JJYnchausti and Cloud Center, announced the plans to build a 12-megawatt facility in the Batangas Province’s Light Industry and Science Park IV.

In addition, ST Telemedia Global Data Centres established a joint venture in March 2022 with Globe Telecom and Ayala Corporation to develop data centers in the country.

According to JLL, the Philippines currently have a total installed capacity of 96 megawatts. As more data center players are anticipated to enter and grow their footprints in the country, this number may triple over the next few years.

The post Can the Philippines be APAC’s next data center hub? appeared first on TechWire Asia.

Data has shown to be a valuable resource for innovating the future. But the problem with data is that, if not managed properly, it can also hurt a business. It can be challenging to determine what is significant or relevant to employees’ work, particularly when there is a lot of data to manage and a large number of data points.

What are the data problems?

In addition to having too much data to handle, the majority of digitsl businesses today have experienced multiple data silos as a result of their investments in application and data platforms over a period of time within an organization. As a result, businesses today do not have a single view of either their customers’ or their business’s data.

“Now, this problem is becoming more complicated because more than 87% of the companies want to collaborate with other companies and share data. However, if you don’t have a single view of customer or single view of business within your organization, it limits your ability to share data and collaborate with other ecosystem players,” explained Sanjay Deshmukh, Senior Regional Vice President, Snowflake ASEAN and India.

Building a modern data platform is the best way to address this problem. And this up-to-date data platform should focus on the six essential components:

• Consolidates all of the organization’s data
• Supports all workload types regardless of the company
• Encourages data collaboration so that businesses can maximize the value of their data
• Is simple to use
• Puts security first
• Leverage multi-cloud so that businesses can be flexible

“The number one reason why there is so much of interest around Snowflake is because of the problem that we are trying to solve for our customers, which is related to data problem,” said Deshmukh. “At Snowflake, our mission is to help solve that problem for our customers and mobilize the world’s data. Therefore, that’s what we offer at Snowflake with our Data Cloud, which is built to support all of the 6 key elements.”

Snowflake addresses data problems

As the company focuses on growing its customer base in Southeast Asia, Snowflake just announced that it has officially opened in the Philippines. Tapping Snowflake as its Data Cloud partner, Globe Telecom (Globe), a leading provider of technology and digital solutions in the Philippines, has greatly  improved data-driven decision-making through data democratization.

Globe required a more scalable, agile, cost-efficient, and unified platform that would improve data accessibility and promote staff collaboration in order to be more responsive to the expanding digital expectations of Filipinos. As Globe Group expands services beyond connectivity to life-enabling solutions in healthcare, education, entertainment, digital marketing, and e-commerce, among other areas, speed in decision-making is crucial to delivering timely answers to its customers.

Through Snowflake’s unified platform and user-friendly interface, Globe gained almost limitless and highly scalable storage and computation capability, as well as close to real-time data insights. A 50% increase in yearly cost savings was made possible by Globe’s switch to a public cloud architecture thanks to Snowflake’s cloud-native technology.

“Data democratization is data at your fingertips— the ability to access, use, and explore data on your own. We want to make decision-making powered by data possible, to as many job functions in the least possible time with the least dependency from others,” said Dan Natindim, Globe Vice President for the Enterprise Data Office, Globe Telecom.

The launch in the Philippines

Customers in Southeast Asia are increasingly relying on Snowflake’s platform, which runs the Data Cloud, a worldwide network that enables Snowflake users to break down data silos and extract value from constantly expanding data volumes in safe, regulated, and legal ways.

Deshmukh added, “We are expanding our business across Southeast Asia to bring the power of the Snowflake Data Cloud to more organizations. Today we are thrilled to bring the ability to harness the power of the world’s data to the Philippines.”

The post Solving data management problems in the Philippines appeared first on TechWire Asia.

For centuries, cash has been the predominant mode of payment in countries throughout the world. In Southeast Asia, the situation was much the same, including in the Philippines, where cash dominated the cultural conversation in barrios across the archipelago of islands. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and the payments conversation shifted quickly to digital.

In the early days of the pandemic, digital payments made up about a fifth (20.1%) of total financial transactions in the Philippines in 2020, up from 14% in 2019 and a paltry 1% in 2013. The Philippines is not the only nation reassessing how things are paid for; it is a global movement as the payments landscape across the world develops at a rapid clip.

The financial services industry has long been at the forefront of digital innovation but remains wary of strict compliance standards and a need to stay ahead of financially motivated scams and money laundering initiatives. In 2022, various payment systems and instruments are being introduced on a frequent basis.

Digital payments go viral in the Philippines

Traditionally, slower to innovate regions like Southeast Asia were forced to quickly adapt as a ripple effect of the pandemic spread out to every aspect of daily life – how people shopped for food and necessities, to embracing remote working and the digital tools to accommodate that, and how people transact with each other, to name a few. Some of these developments have been accelerated beyond COVID measures into becoming necessities as opposed to preferences.

E-commerce, for instance, has seeped into the mainstream. The convenience of online shopping and the option to compare items from different avenues before purchase made a lot of sense. And going out to buy groceries, once a chore that had to be dealt with physically while navigating around busy schedules could now be done online with a few clicks.

Another concern for close-knit communities in the Philippines and elsewhere during the pandemic was contact. Touching things became a sanitary issue, including making payments with good old cash or even credit and debit cards with PIN numbers. Thankfully, contactless digital payments were already a proven commodity, tested to be secure and convenient while minimizing the risk of unwanted contact.

Perhaps this is why, even as far back as March 2020, contactless payments surged by 150% compared to a year earlier. Online banking also grew in prominence as consumers experimented with performing more self-service banking transactions instead of queueing up at their local branch, including transferring funds both domestically and across borders. This led to mobile bank registrations spiking by 200% and online banking traffic in general picking up by a whopping 85% as early as April 2020.

e-Payments gaining across islands – and borders

Recognizing this tectonic shift in user behavior, the Philippines’ central bank Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), is hoping to drive the share of digital payments to half of all transactions performed in the country by 2023. The growth has been staggering with digital payments in the Philippines expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 115% in just the last two years.

Already a quarter (25%) of Filipino consumers consider cashless options as their primary payment method, while 78% prefer shopping in stores that offer digital payments. The Philippines government is supporting the growth by introducing real-time payment channels like the national Government e-Payments (eGov Pay) Facility, the National QR Code Standard (QR PH), and the mobile app-based method for instantly sending money to or from Philippine bank accounts and e-wallets, instaPay.

In a sign of the digitized payments momentum shift, five Southeast Asian (SEA) countries are now looking to link their national payment systems, enabling for the first time the biggest SEA economies – Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines – to make cross-border digital transactions with less friction.

Not only would the agreement, set to go into effect this November, allow for financial settlements to be made in the local currency as opposed to leveraging the US dollar as an intermediary currency, but the digital flexibility of the payment infrastructure will open up the possibilities to link with other regional payment networks – with the potential to expand to encompass real time bank transfers and central bank digital currencies, too.

With real-time payments in the Philippines touted to grow 5-10x from current levels in the coming years, leading financial technology solutions provider Euronet Worldwide will power real-time digital payments for the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) over the instaPay network.

Agilely powering the retail payments ecosystem lightyears ahead

BPI will implement Euronet’s Ren ecosystem of digital payments technologies in compliance with the new messaging standard ISO 20022, the improved remittance data standard that enables banks to create innovative business services that can make full use of real-time payments infrastructure. Ren powers streamlined digital payments over instaPay, including BPI services such as request to pay, proxy services, and bill payments for the bank’s retail and corporate customers.

The REN payments platform has already been leveraged to modernize the largest state-owned bank switching network in Indonesia, PT Jalin Pembayaran Nusantara, not just supporting the bank’s online and offline transaction switching processes between different payment modes but offering services via APIs that can power quick and efficient implementation of agile new financial products.

“As real-time payment systems become mainstream, banks require modern technologies to transform their legacy message structures to the new standards that allow them to provide better user experiences and enhanced features to their clients,” says Himanshu Pujara, Euronet’s Managing Director in the Asia Pacific (APAC). He adds, “We are proud to be working with Bank of the Philippine Islands, a leader in digital payments in the country, and enabling their digital transformation journey.”

As a pioneering leader in processing secure electronic financial transactions globally, it makes sense that Euronet would workwith BPI, the pioneering first bank in Southeast Asia, to deliver exceptional payment experiences. Ren leverages open APIs and microservices-based architecture to give retail and business customers the sort of agility and cross-platform convenience that is only made possible by advanced digital payments technologies.

The value-based positive changes of cashless payments are here to stay, and Euronet is leading the revolution with BPI in the Philippines. Click here to find out how you can be on the frontline, too.

The post Going cashless: A mandate for the post pandemic world? appeared first on TechWire Asia.

The transition from paper to digital has greatly benefited people’s lives, but there are rising concerns that some of society’s most disadvantaged groups are already being excluded and will continue to be so. For instance, the Philippines has higher rates of poverty and income disparity than most of its Southeast Asian neighbors – because of the financial inclusion of low-income populations.

The Agence Française de Développement reports that financial inclusion among Filipinos is still relatively low. Only 29% of adult Filipinos held a formal financial account in 2019. All financial services are concerned by this low inclusion rate.

The nation is aware of the concerns surrounding this issue. Therefore, in light of the substantial changes that have occurred since the Financial Inclusion Steering Committee (FISC) was established six years ago, it has released an updated strategy to clarify its focus, objectives, and priorities.

The new National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (NSFI) will act as a six-year road map for achieving the goal of advancing financial inclusion in the direction of widespread economic growth and financial resilience.

How has the state of financial inclusion in the Philippines changed since the announcement?

There have been notable advancements in developing countries, according to the most recent edition of The World Bank’s Global Findex database, which was published in June 2022. For instance, compared to 2017, the percentage of respondents who have accounts has climbed by 8 p.p. to 71%, while the percentage of respondents who have made or received digital payments has increased by 13 p.p. to 57%.

According to Robocash researchers, this general trend is also present in the Philippines. Financial services in the nation are now more widely available as a result of the 1.5x increase in account numbers to 51.4%. Even more impressively, the percentage of people who own credit and debit cards has increased five times (to 21.7%) and by three times (to 15.9%), respectively.

Financial inclusion situation in the Philippines

In addition, it appears that savings in financial institutions (11.9%-19.2%) and borrowings (from 10.7% to 17.5%) have grown together. These developments are particularly notable since they position mobile money, digital lending, and savings accounts among the most promising fintech industries in the Philippines.

Even more interesting, when asked what financial issues worry them the most, respondents most commonly cited the cost of medical care due to accidents and illnesses (41.8%). One reason for this is that it indicates that society’s well-being is improving (since respondents are much less worried about current expenses).

It also draws attention to the possibility of the growth of fintech services like online insurance, telemedicine, or specialized pharmaceutical aggregators. Digital lending, savings deposits, and mobile money can also be seen as the Philippine fintech’s most promising sectors when taking into account the previously mentioned strong rise in borrowing and savings in financial institutions, as well as the level of mobile accounts.

The Robocash experts provide further context by saying that, in their opinion, Findex has mostly validated what they already knew. In 2021, they carried out a similar study in the Philippines.

“Its results largely fall in line with The World Bank findings: the share of financial institution accounts (Findex – 45.9%, RCG – 38%), borrowings from financial institutions (17.5% vs. 22.5%), to name a few. The catalyst behind such explosive growth is the Covid-19 pandemic, as 68% of the respondents claimed to have experienced financial difficulties at the time, and therefore were forced to adapt. Naturally, government policies on financial inclusion have played their own part as well,” they claimed.

The post The Philippines sees a positive light in pushing financial inclusion forward appeared first on TechWire Asia.

In the Philippines, buy now pay later (BNPL) payments are expected to grow by 109.7% on an annual basis to reach US$803.5 million this year. The projection signals that the BNPL model is very promising in the Southeast Asian nation, as it is the case with its neighboring countries. Banking on that very opportunity, Singapore-based Atome partnered with payments giant Mastercard to launch the Atome Card in the Philippines last week — the first of its kind in the BNPL space worldwide.

In short, Atome alongside Mastercard is offering Filipino consumers a new way to pay with credit. With that, Atome card provides cardholders with an Atome line of credit that can be used to pay online and in-store retailers by simply presenting their card during check-out.  “The launch of the Atome Card marks an exciting new chapter for Atome, as it’s the first financial service we offer apart from BNPL,” Atome Payment Partnerships Director Magic Tang said in a statement.

The upside with Atome card as opposed to a conventional credit card is the fact that besides having no annual fees, it does not require any minimum income. That way, the Atome Card will provide many underserved segments in the Philippines access to a flexible credit facility, “the first such innovative solution across the region with more markets to come in the next few months,” Tang said.

For Mastercard, the offering will allow both companies to serve more than 70% of Filipinos who are unbanked or underbanked, and do not qualify for credit cards. “The Atome Card will enable cardholders with choice, control and flexibility to manage their finances and is available to use anywhere Mastercard is accepted. For merchants, this also means increased sales and better conversion rates, extending the benefits of digital commerce to more consumers and businesses in the Philippines.” Mastercard Philippines country manager Simon Calasanz said.

Interestingly, an application, available on the App Store and on Google Play, is available for  holders to track consumption and payment schedule. It was only in October last year when Atome was launched in the Philippines and as of now, it has garnered around 600 online and offline merchants.

What does a BNPL card mean for the traditional banking industry?

As Atome and Mastercard collaboration is essentially targeting the burgeoning younger generation in the Philippines, the rising popularity of BNPL in general creates another risk for banks – “losing access to millennial and Gen Z consumers attracted to this alternative form of financing,” as EY Managing Director for financial services consulting Patricia Partelow puts it.

Even before coming up with a ‘BNPL credit card’,  the most worrying trend for banks is that BNPL players are expanding into more traditional banking services. PayPal, which has lifted the upper purchase limits available via its Pay in 4 option, now allows customers to repay directly from their bank accounts, rather than credit cards. Others are moving into the B2B space. Australian fintech, Spenda, positions itself as offering faster, more flexible “non-bank” lending that helps businesses grow.

This in fact signals a pressing urgency for banks to consider how, or if, they want to participate in this market. Frankly, as EY puts it, “those that decide against entering, or hesitate too long in doing so, may risk being shut out of an expanding value pool, and losing access to a generation of consumers with different credit needs.” Experts in general share a consensus that for banks to challenge the dominance of fintech players, it will not be easy.

“But, with this new form of POS financing only growing in popularity with both customers and merchants, banks will need to consider their own position in this growing market, or risk losing further revenue and market share,” EY’s report stated.

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If you are planning to travel in Southeast Asia later this year or anytime after, you may soon be able to do so without much hassle with currency exchange. In fact, you will be able to pay for your goods and services using just QR code as a payment method–that too in local currencies, without the need of US dollar as an intermediary.

In a recent panel session on the sidelines of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Bali, Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo said by November, five of the region’s biggest economies, including the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, are set to sign a deal to integrate their payment networks.

At this point, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are connected, while Singapore is linked to Thailand and is seeking to add more countries. But overall, the linkage has not been completed, and according to a Bloomberg report, once done, payments made through the system will use local-currency settlements between the countries.

That would mean payments transacted in Thailand using an Indonesian app would be directly exchanged between rupiah and baht, bypassing the need for US dollar as intermediary. Once the payment network between five countries has been completed, the central banks will seek to link this network with other regional clusters around the world.

That will then bring the same structure to real-time bank transfers and even central bank digital currencies eventually. The Monetary Authority of Singapore Managing Director Ravi Menon during the same panel in Bali said, “This can be a deeply impactful move that we can build to the rest of the world. It’s a public good infrastructure which improves financial inclusion, enhances efficiency and creates new business opportunities for all citizens.”

With a massive acceptance and use of QR code payment among merchants and buyers globally, paired by the increase in the use of smartphones and faster internet connectivity, market experts are mostly optimistic with the payment method’s growth. In fact, according to a recent report by Juniper Research, the global spend using QR code payments could reach over US$3 trillion by 2025; rising 25% from US$2.4 trillion this year.

“This growth will be driven by the increasing focus on improving the level of financial inclusion in developing regions and providing alternatives to established payment methods in developed regions,” the research firm said in a press release in May this year. Geographically though, the report found that the prospects for adoption and growth are stronger in markets with national schemes in place. 

That is mainly due to incentives that promote ease of use for consumers; with increased interoperability being a major enabling factor. India holds the most potential, according to Juniper, as the transaction value of QR code payments is forecasted to increase from US$62 billion in 2022, to US$125 billion by 2026. In general, adoption of QR codes has been expansive across Asia and a particularly ubiquitous mechanic for customers’ brand engagement in the Asia Pacific.

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A hyperscale data center enables big data-producing companies to deal with the massive processes needed to ensure efficient support for robust and scalable applications. As a massive business-critical facility, a hyperscale data center also requires a lot of power, citing concerns on carbon emissions generated from them.

According to a study by Mordor Intelligence, the hyperscale data center market is expected to grow at approximately 3.38% between 2021 to 2026. With exponential data growth in the ASEAN region, the demand for hyperscale data centers in the region is also increasing.

Singapore has been a prime location for most companies to set up their data centers due to their high-speed internet connectivity. However, data regulations in some countries on data usage have also seen tech companies investing in data centers locally. For example, Alibaba announced plans for a new data center in Thailand while Indonesia is already home to several hyperscale data centers.

The Philippines will now have its first hyperscale data center. Space^DC, a Singapore-based data center provider, is working with JLL, a global real estate services firm, to build a secure, resilient, network rich, data center called MNL1, which will be situated in Cainta, part of Greater Manila. The green data center will be fully powered with renewable energy – wind, geothermal – and is slated to open in 2022.

At 43,000m², MNL1 will be the largest hyperscale data center campus in the Philippines and will deliver 72MW of critical power. With an outstanding PUE of 1.3, MNL1 will also lead in terms of energy efficiency and design, to minimize carbon footprint.

The hyperscale data center will be built across 12x four-story data hall buildings. The state-of-the-art facilities feature Space^DC’s N+1 design, which comfortably accommodates racks of up to 15kW across 48 x 1,500kW data halls before additional cooling support is required.

MNL1 has its own leading internet exchange and diverse connectivity including local/international fiber presence, vendor-neutral access, multiple MMRs and SDN. Benefits include switch/ramps to cloud providers such as AWS, Alibaba, and Azure; direct cloud access and connectivity to over 400 data centers.

Space^DC CEO, Darren Hawkins said, “The Philippines ranks second in terms of data center growth in Southeast Asia. With only 47MW of available capacity in the country, it is a dramatically underserved market. We are excited to be a first mover in a new market where we see our customers are investing heavily in.”

“Space^DC is in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the strong customer interest we are seeing in the Philippines. MNL1’s design is setting new standards in terms of technology, quality, and operational excellence in the Philippines,” commented Ralph Davidson, Executive Director, Data Center Services for JLL, the appointed project construction manager.

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