digital
How AI’s growing influence is driving gender-inclusive financial innovations in the Philippines
Thursday, April 24, 2025
The Philippines is at a critical juncture in its expansion into a thriving digital economy. With an increasing demand for connectivity, the country confronts a lack of digital infrastructure for essential financial services. Filipinos continue to face barriers to financial inclusion, where gender parity issues exist, and a significant segment of the population remains unbanked or underserved by traditional financial institutions.
The 2020 pandemic was a turning point in the country’s digital transformation. According to available data, an estimated 29% of the population was considered unbanked or underbanked in early 2020. Moreover, 23% had access to insurance, only 2% had access to formal credit during this period, and only 1% had access to investments.
GCash, the Philippines’ leading finance super app and largest cashless ecosystem, has been instrumental in breaking these barriers to inclusion. It began by enabling access to the marginalized who do not have traditional documentation or credit history.
“At GCash, we addressed inclusion barriers using tech-enabled and data-driven solutions guided by customer-centricity,” said Martha Sazon, president & CEO of Mynt, the holding company of GCash, during the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos. “Our approach is centered on making products accessible, relevant, and simple, so we can work toward ensuring that no one is left behind.”
Levelling the playing field and unlocking opportunities
With millions of users, GCash pursues its vision of “Finance For All” by providing Filipinos, regardless of gender, background, or socioeconomic standing, with access to an e-wallet, loans, investments, and insurance coverage, as well as financial support for micro, small, and medium enterprises.
For the predominantly women-led fintech company, pursuing this mission involves dedicated efforts to equip women with the digital tools to make informed financial decisions, invest in their future, and ultimately achieve financial independence. Sazon shared, “Our goal of Finance For All is inextricably linked to nation-building in the Philippines. We know this cannot be achieved without women’s inclusion, as we have seen that women's empowerment leads to uplifting communities.”
Today, five out of ten GCash users are women. Addressing the nuanced nature of personal finances, GCash also goes beyond basic services to support Filipinos through a comprehensive digital ecosystem that caters to their diverse needs.
AI as a bridge to gender-inclusive finance
GCash attributes a significant part of its progress as an enabler of financial inclusion to artificial intelligence (AI). A user’s integration into the GCash ecosystem starts with an AI-powered onboarding process. GCash was the first to use the eKYC (electronic Know Your Customer) process in the Philippines, scaling market penetration while using alternative data.
“Fifty percent of our population doesn’t have documents,” said Sazon. “How do we address that? We use AI to score them instead. Those who use the GCash app to make payments and transactions [can be scored]. Now, millions [can] get a credit score without relying on documents or showing collateral.”
AI has also enabled GCash to personalize its services to already onboarded users, helping analyze each user’s needs, custom-tailoring outreach, and providing individualized financial solutions ranging from microloans for small businesses to flexible investment opportunities and affordable insurance coverage.
Creating opportunities for women to pursue their financial goals is another way AI boosts gender-inclusive financial empowerment in the Philippines. Today, five out of 10 GSave and GLoan users are women, while seven out of 10 GInsure users are women. Notably, GCash is also able to accelerate inclusion through its groundbreaking features like GScore, GCash’s proprietary credit scoring system that determines a user’s creditworthiness using AI and a person’s in-app activity.
“[Users] might not have the traditional requirements, but they have a digital footprint,” cited Rowie Zamora, Chief Strategy Officer of GCash, at a WEF 2025 panel hosted by Deloitte.
“This has enabled us to unlock over USD 2 billion for microloans to 7 million Filipinos in the past several years,” she added. “That’s quite huge in a country where credit penetration has been in the low digits. Before the pandemic, only one percent of Filipinos had access to credit.”
Using AI to scale positive impact
For organizations like GCash, taking a people-centric approach to AI is key. It uses AI to enhance customer experience, streamline operations for greater efficiency, and preserve consumer trust in the digital finances space, as it offers alternatives that mitigate systemic barriers to financial inclusion, particularly for unbanked and traditionally underserved communities. Ultimately, these innovations aim to create a more inclusive and equitable financial system for all individuals.
GCash has also leveraged AI to create customer affinities that offer a deeper understanding of the market, paving the way for hyper-personalization that addresses a user’s needs with better precision. Through customer affinities, each user isn’t considered just a part of a demographic but is treated as their very own market segment. This approach has allowed GCash to scale its initiatives, from promoting financial literacy to supporting women-owned and women-led MSMEs.
The individualization of GCash’s suite of innovative in-app enablement platforms has allowed it to address financial concerns specific to Filipino women, who make up more than half of today’s social sellers who use cashless payment solutions.
“Each step toward financial inclusion is a step toward accelerating Filipino women’s economic empowerment,” concluded Sazon. “This month especially, we bear in mind what was reported by the World Economic Forum: that we stand to achieve full gender equality only in the year 2158 if we maintain our current pace. We at GCash feel the urgency now more than ever and aim to further utilize AI as tech for good.”
