Maya Champions Financial Resilience as the Next Step for Filipino Consumers

Maya Head of Corporate Affairs Toff Rada shares his insights at the ASEAN Tech Summit Manila 2026, highlighting how data, AI, smarter financial products, and responsible access to savings and credit can help move Filipinos beyond basic financial inclusion toward stronger financial health and resilience.

• Beyond Access: With formal account ownership in the Philippines rising from 22% in 2015 to around 50% in 2025, Maya says the next challenge is ensuring these accounts actually help Filipinos save, access responsible credit, grow businesses, and become better prepared for financial emergencies.
• Data And AI: Maya sees everyday payment activity as a valuable starting point for understanding consumers and businesses with limited traditional credit histories, while AI can help put this information to work across onboarding, personalization, credit assessment, fraud detection, and customer protection.
• Better Habits: Through high-yield savings, time deposit products, and Maya XP, Maya is integrating incentives, missions, personalized nudges, and rewards directly into the digital financial experience to encourage customers to develop healthier and more sustainable financial habits.

From Financial Access to Financial Health

Getting more Filipinos into the formal financial system has been an important achievement, but Maya believes opening an account should only be the beginning. The bigger opportunity now is making those accounts genuinely useful in helping people build savings, gain access to responsible credit, and become more financially resilient when unexpected challenges arise.

Speaking at the ASEAN Tech Summit Manila 2026, Maya Head of Corporate Affairs Toff Rada said financial inclusion should increasingly be evaluated based on whether access actually improves people's financial security and creates opportunities.

"Access was the first phase of financial inclusion. The next phase is financial health," Rada said. "The question is no longer simply whether Filipinos have a financial account, but whether that account is making their lives better and more secure."

The shift comes at an interesting point for the Philippines. Formal account ownership has more than doubled over the past decade, increasing from 22% in 2015 to around 50% in 2025. Despite this progress, many Filipinos continue to use their accounts mainly for transactions while remaining underserved when it comes to formal savings and credit products.

Building on Digital Foundations

Rada credited national payment rails, digital identity, improving credit information, and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas' digital banking framework for laying important foundations for financial inclusion. These systems, however, still need to be strengthened and sustained.

Rather than focusing primarily on the number of accounts opened or transactions completed, Maya believes progress should also be seen through more practical outcomes. That includes whether people can build savings, access affordable credit, grow their businesses, or better handle emergencies.

Digital payments could play an increasingly important role here. Everyday financial activity, when used responsibly and with proper safeguards, can provide financial institutions with useful signals about consumers and businesses that have little or no traditional credit history.

Through the Maya app and Maya Business, payment activity can potentially serve as the beginning of a broader financial relationship involving savings and credit.

"Every payment is a data point," Toff Rada said. "Used responsibly, those signals can help make more people and businesses visible to the formal financial system and improve their access to financial services."

Putting AI to Work

AI is another part of Maya's approach to making financial services more responsive to individual customers. The company uses AI and data across digital onboarding, personalization, credit assessment, fraud detection, and customer protection.

The goal is not simply to collect more information, but to use available signals more effectively in designing financial experiences and services that can better respond to the needs of consumers and businesses.

This approach becomes particularly relevant for people who may not have the conventional financial records traditionally used to assess eligibility for different services.

Financial Education Inside the Product

Maya also sees room to rethink financial education itself. Instead of relying solely on seminars and standalone financial literacy campaigns, Rada said financial products should be designed to help customers make better decisions while they are actually saving, spending, and borrowing.

At Maya, this can be seen in its high-yield savings and time deposit products. Customers can unlock time-bound savings-rate boosts and other rewards by completing defined activities.

Maya XP expands on the idea through a personalized engagement score. Customers can complete missions and challenges, receive suggestions about what they can do next, and progress through levels offering relevant rewards and benefits.

"For financial institutions, financial literacy cannot sit outside the product," Toff Rada said. "It has to be built into the experience through clear feedback, relevant incentives and timely nudges that help healthier financial habits become second nature."

A Wider ASEAN Opportunity

Looking beyond the Philippines, Rada called for common approaches across ASEAN for measuring financial health, complemented by more interoperable payment and data systems.

The discussion highlights how the conversation surrounding financial inclusion is gradually evolving. Access remains essential, but the more meaningful question is what consumers and businesses can actually accomplish once they are connected to the financial system.

Rada shared these insights during the panel discussion "Beyond Financial Inclusion: Advancing Financial Health at Scale" at the ASEAN Tech Summit Manila 2026, co-organized by FinTech Alliance.PH and the ASEAN Business Advisory Council Philippines.

He joined BSP Deputy Director Kristine Orlina, VNPay JSC Vietnam Vice President Niraan de Silva, Grab Financial Group Country Head CJ Lacsican, Wise Philippines Country Manager Areson Cuevas, Bayad President and CEO Lawrence Ferrer, and Alliance of Digital Finance and Fintech Association CEO Sarah Corley for the discussion.

For Maya, the direction is clear: the next chapter of financial inclusion should be measured not only by how many Filipinos have accounts, but by whether digital finance can help them become more secure, capable, and resilient over time.