OpenBankPH: Equipping Philippine Banks in a Modern Digital World

Abstract

Despite the growing number of mobile users in the Philippines and the country consistently leading in “time spent on social media” charts, the same cannot be said for the country’s digital banking ecosystem. The lack of mobile financial apps and online banking platforms for the thousands of financial institutions recognized by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas leaves many Filipinos unbanked and prevents many from shifting from face-to-face transactions to digital banking. To help promote financial inclusion through modern technology, a no-cost platform was selected that enabled open banking to simulate a bank with Open API. A mobile-friendly web application was then built using an emerging technology. The result was a usable, functional, and well-performing online app that serves basic banking needs and follows government guidelines. As the system is open-source, it allows hundreds of financial institutions to freely adopt this system to make fast, progressive changes towards digital finance in the Philippines.