The Philippine fintech market is entering a harder phase. For years, growth was easy to explain. More users opened digital wallets. More people sent money online. More merchants accepted digital payments. Each transfer, cash-in, or cash-out created a chance to earn a fee.
That model is now under pressure. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is pushing banks and e-wallets to make transfer charges closer to the real cost of processing a payment. BPI and RCBC are among the first major banks to move. BPI has made many transfers to other banks and e-wallets free. RCBC has also waived many InstaPay fees, though it still uses limits and conditions.
For customers, the change is welcome. For investors, it raises a harder question. What happens to a fintech company when fee income starts to fall? This question matters most for GCash and its parent company, Mynt, which has been preparing for a major IPO. GCash has scale, a strong brand, and a wide user base. Those are real strengths. But public investors do not buy user numbers alone. They buy future earnings.
If transfer fees become smaller, GCash must show that it can earn more from other services. The likely areas are lending, insurance, investments, merchant payments, and other financial products. This may support growth, but it also changes the risk profile of the company.
A payment business earns from volume. A lending business earns from interest, but it also carries credit risk, funding risk, collection risk, and public concern over debt. That is a major shift.
A user who sends money is not the same as a user who takes a loan. The second user can miss payments. The loan can go bad. The company may face pressure over high charges, unclear terms, or weak checks on a borrower’s ability to pay.
This means investors should look beyond monthly users and transaction count. They should ask how fast the loan book is growing, what kind of borrowers are being served, how losses are measured, and whether growth is being bought through easy credit.
The removal of gambling links adds another layer. In 2025, regulators ordered e-wallets to remove direct links to online gambling services after public concern over addiction, debt, and family harm. The decision was right for public safety. But it also cut off a source of traffic and income.
The result is a double squeeze. Fee income is under pressure. Gambling-linked activity is gone. Lending must now carry more of the growth story. That makes the Mynt IPO possible, but harder to price.
A strong valuation depends on trust in future cash flow. If investors believe GCash can become a full financial platform, the IPO may still draw interest. If they believe growth depends too much on risky credit or weak consumer safeguards, they may demand a lower price.
This is not only a fintech story. It is also a lesson for investors looking at artificial intelligence firms. AI companies often show fast adoption, high user growth, and large future markets. But their business models are still changing. Some may earn from subscriptions. Others may earn from ads, data, enterprise tools, automated scoring, or public contracts.
The key question is the same: What happens when regulators remove the easiest source of profit?
In fintech, fee caps and gambling rules are forcing a new model. In AI, rules on privacy, copyright, deepfakes, worker tracking, and automated decisions may do the same.
A company may look strong while rules are weak. Its true strength appears when the market becomes more strict. That is why regulation should not always be seen as a threat to value. Good regulation can reveal which firms have real products and which firms depend on hidden costs, weak user choice, or public harm.
The eGov story also matters. Cheaper payment rails can support taxes, fees, pensions, aid, and other public services. This may create large, steady payment flows for banks and e-wallets. But public contracts come with higher duties.
Security, service quality, fraud control, access, and fair pricing all become more important. The long-term winners may not be the companies that charge the most. They may be the companies that become trusted parts of the country’s financial system.
For investors, the test is simple. Do not ask only how fast a platform is growing.
Ask what kind of growth it is, what risk supports it, and whether it can survive when regulators finally catch up.
Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, Channel News Asia, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.
If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com.
