GCash promotes a dual-technology strategy to advance financial inclusion and cybersecurity at APSCA Next Generation Payments 2026

[L-R] APSCA Chairman Greg Pote, BPC Country Director Audrey Mae Peñaranda, BSP Payments Policy and Development Department (PPDD) Director Atty. Bridget Rose M. Mesina Romero, Deputy Director German S. Constantino, GCash General Manager and Head for Business Paul Albano, BSP-Financial Inclusion Office Deputy Director Cesar Augusto Jr. Villanueva, United Nations Development Programme 'Better than Cash Alliance' Southeast Asia Regional Lead Isvary Sivalingam, and Visa Product Management and go-to-market, QR Center of Excellence Director Vaibhav Jain.

The digital payments sector in Asia Pacific is at a turning point in its history, where it must choose between creating technologies that actually help people and chasing the next great thing. How QR and NFC technologies might be combined to increase access and fortify defenses against emerging threats is at the heart of this discussion.

Together with industry leaders, regulators, and innovators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Visa, HSBC Holdings, EMVCo, Crunchfish, Netwrix, Paynet, Infineon Technologies, Entrust, and Fourdotzero, GCash investigated how identity and payment systems can change while still being safe, accessible, and applicable to a range of markets. This objective served as the framework for these talks at the Next Generation Payments 2026 conference of the Asia Pacific Smart Card Association (APSCA).

Building for sustainable merchant inclusion

BSP PPDD Deputy Director Atty. Tricia Defante-Andres, Bank Officer V Jan Marlon Evangelista, GCash Product Innovation Head Ferdie Perez, Visa Product Management and go-to-Market, qr Center of Excellence Director Vaibhav Jain and APSCA Chairman Greg Pote.

Paul Albano, general manager and head of GCash for Business, grounded the conversation in the realities of the 9.3 million nano, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in the Philippines. Of these, 1.1 million are micro merchants and 8.1 million are nano merchants, two highly promising yet highly susceptible categories.

He underlined that inclusivity cannot be achieved solely through technology. Programs like the BSP's Palengke QRPh Plus Program, partnerships with the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), and the DigiCities Program with Start-up Village, Canva, and TikTok all contribute to the sustainable growth of MSMEs.

Albano also discussed how GCash Pera Outlet+ (GPO+) is transforming sari-sari stores into community hubs where digital transactions like as cash-in, cash-out, bill payment, and load purchases are replacing traditional goods.

Market timing over technology readiness

GCash Chief Information Security Officer Miguel Geronilla, Netwrix APJ Vice President Terry Burgess, EMVCo Engagement and Operations Director Oliver Manahan, and APSCA Chairman Greg Pote.

The topic of discussion changed from inclusivity to timing. Ferdie Perez, head of product innovation at GCash, explained why the company is taking a cautious approach to NFC adoption. Ten years ago, Alipay introduced QR payments, which currently account for 60% of digital transactions in the Philippines.

But with more than 300,000 tap-to-pay terminals utilizing NFC at the moment, infrastructure, merchant education, and cost adjustments are required. Eighty to ninety percent of the country's eighty million smartphone users have NFC-capable devices.

Despite this readiness, adoption has been sluggish. NFC and QR are complementary technologies that serve different markets and needs, and Perez emphasized that effective rollouts rely on aligning implementations with market realities.

Adapting defenses to evolving threats

The conversation was concluded by security. GCash's chief information security officer, Miguel Geronilla, explained how fraud has evolved with the growth of digital payments, moving from account takeovers to more intricate social engineering.

He recalled how GCash was the first to use biometric facial verification before it became a norm in the business. When unusual patterns emerge, he described how contemporary safeguards combine behavioral analysis, transaction monitoring, and real-time friction. He underlined that no single company can handle these problems alone and voiced support for the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (AFASA), which strengthens financial institutions' ability to trace and recover money across the ecosystem.

From merchant education and acceptance infrastructure to security frameworks that keep up with increasingly complex threats, the industry's ability to bridge practical gaps between capability and readiness will have a greater impact on the region's payment evolution than any single technological advancement, according to the discussions at APSCA.

The leading industry association for identification and payments in Asia, APSCA has a 25-year history of convening key decision-makers to address significant business and technological issues related to identity and payment systems.

By basing technological choices on market realities rather than ideals, GCash keeps creating payment solutions that satisfy the diverse needs of its millions of customers. This guarantees that rather than excluding particular market segments, innovation fosters financial inclusion.

For more information, please visit www.gcash.com.

About GCash

GCash is the Philippines’ #1 Finance Super App and Largest Cashless Ecosystem. Through the GCash App, users can easily purchase prepaid airtime; pay bills via partner billers nationwide; send and receive money anywhere in the Philippines, even to other bank accounts; purchase from over 6 million partner merchants and social sellers; and get access to savings, credit, loans, insurance and invest money, and so much more, all at the convenience of their smartphones. Its mobile wallet operations are handled by G-Xchange, Inc. (GXI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mynt, the first and only $5 billion unicorn in the Philippines.

GCash is a staunch supporter of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly UN SDGs 5,8,10, and 13, which focus on safety & security, financial inclusion, diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, respectively.