Fintech Revolution Summit 2023 highlights: Blockchain is going to be the future of finance innovation

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The Philippines is indeed ripe when it comes to using technologies as Filipinos can work with any changes, such as in coping with digitalization in the time of the pandemic.

When Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge collapsed, thousands of Filipino players found themselves in debt—a clear indication of how fanatic they can get with new technologies like blockchain gaming. However, this doesn’t apply to banking. According to a recent study by McKinsey, Philippines banks have been slow to adopt a “more transformative aspects of digital finance.”

To educate Filipinos, Traicon Events held a two-day event with finance executives, CEO, government officials, and fintech enthusiasts to unleash the power of fintech in the Southeast Asian country and teach them about the emerging technologies in the space. Day 1 centered on how fintech and banking can change the future, while the second day delved into achieving financial inclusion.

“Fintech is a need. Without finance, nothing works in the world,” Traicon Events founder Shyuj Kumar said at the Fintech Revolution Summit held at New Coast Hotel Manila on May 24 and 25.

One of the topics that were showcased at the summit was blockchain, and as the founder of Traicon Events expressed, blockchain is going to be the future and has already started to streamline the financial process. However, he noted that educating the people about the technology must still be the main priority.

“Blockchain is going to be helping in the other sectors as well, not just on trading activity assets, but blockchain is going to be future innovation,” he reiterated.

Netbank co-founder Gus Poston agrees with the Traicon events founder, stating that there’s a lot of interest and blockchain users in the country, and the missing part of the puzzle, he said, was to have an anti-money laundering regulation.

“The requirement there is to manage some of the anti-money laundering issues properly, and we’re well placed to do that. We’ve got tools, we’ve got systems in order to do that. So I imagine that we will get into that space sometime soon,” Poston noted.

For Robert Sanchez Paguia, the division chief at International Cooperation on Cybercrime, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, he already sees the Philippines banking system adjusting to the blockchain.

“We could also try it (blockchain) with other financial institutions of the government, like our Department of Finance and other financial institutions so that there is less cyber threat as far as blockchain technology is concerned,” he said.

No matter how our future is shaping up, with the efforts of government agencies and financial institutions, one thing is for sure— scalable blockchain technology could help build a more trustful and efficient system.

Watch Philippine Fintech Festival Highlights: Designing a digital economy that’s anti-fragile