Philippines

The banking sector in the Philippines is expanding rapidly, hitting double-digit credit growth in four of the five years from 2013 to 2017. The sector has simultaneously recorded notable improvements across major stability indicators. The country’s banking sector is highly liquid and well provisioned, and it benefits from robust macroeconomic...

While the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was formally established in 2015, financial cooperation across the region remains somewhat fragmented. Goods and services move freely between countries, but banks, stock exchanges and securities companies tend to be limited to their home markets.

With innovations such as digital and mobile banking, e-payment systems, blockchain ledgers and cryptocurrency, financial technology (fintech) is set to expand rapidly in the coming years, bolstered by a supportive regulatory environment, low levels of financial inclusion and rapid adoption of digital technology.



In 2016 when Filipinos elected a president hailing from beyond the Metro Manila/Luzon region – home to much of the country’s traditional political elite – they also initiated a major push for far-reaching reforms to the constitution. This change, supported by Southern Leyte-born President Rodrigo Duterte, may soon see the...



With some 7641 islands inhabited by 175 ethnolinguistic groups, the Philippines is one of the most diverse and geographically fragmented countries on Earth. The modern Philippines has thus long been faced with the challenge of uniting these multiple groups within a single nation, while also allowing local and regional communities...

Recent decades have seen a downward trend in corporate taxation, with headline corporate tax rates falling by 20 percentage points since the early 1980s. The average for advanced economies dipped to 22% in 2015, and investment incentives have further reduced effective rates for transnational corporations. After the 2007-08 global financial...