SOUTHEAST Asia’s digital finance boom will stall unless governments and industry players invest in shared infrastructure-digital identity, payment rails, and real-time fraud intelligence-that allows financial services to remain affordable, trusted, and sustainable.
According to Maya Bank Inc. President and CEO Simeon Angelo S. Madrid, the region has made significant strides in digital payments and account access, but warned that access alone is not the end goal.
‘Access is necessary, but an opened account or downloaded app is not yet a financial outcome,’ Madrid said. ‘Real progress is when people can transact reliably, save regularly, borrow responsibly and become more resilient to financial shocks.’
To get there, he said, governments and shared infrastructure providers should invest in capabilities that benefit the entire ecosystem: digital identity, payment and settlement infrastructure, real-time fraud intelligence, trusted data-sharing standards, and reliable connectivity.
Stronger common foundations, Madrid argued, reduce friction and system-wide costs, freeing individual providers to channel their investments into better products and services.
‘Strong shared infrastructure creates a foundation on which providers can compete more effectively on price, service, reach and innovation,’ he said.
Madrid cited digital identity as an example, saying it can ease onboarding and curb fraud when it is trusted, reusable, privacy-protecting, and interoperable. Open finance, he added, can widen customer choice-provided consumers genuinely control their data and clear standards govern consent, security, liability, and portability.
On pricing, Madrid said affordability is essential to financial inclusion and consumer trust, but should be weighed alongside transparency, reliability, safety, and choice.
Digital financial services, he noted, require continuing investment in cybersecurity, fraud prevention, settlement and reconciliation, customer support, system resilience, compliance, and product development.
‘Consumers should have access to affordable and transparent services, but affordability does not mean every provider must arrive at the same price,’ he said. ‘Different institutions operate under different licenses, business models and cost structures. What matters is that consumers receive fair value, strong protection, reliable service and continued innovation.’
Madrid also pressed regulators across the region to keep rules clear on desired outcomes, proportionate in implementation, and predictable over time, saying this gives institutions the confidence to keep investing.
‘A progressive regulatory environment sets strong standards and clear outcomes, then gives institutions room to innovate and compete within those guardrails,’ he said, adding that consumer protection and innovation need not be competing objectives.
For the Asean, Madrid said the long-term opportunity lies in strengthening the common digital foundation while preserving the diversity of institutions and business models that have expanded access across the region.
‘Payments and financial services are already becoming more connected across Asean,’ he said. ‘The next step is making sure trust, identity, data, and consumer protection can move with them.’