Catalyzing Finance for All: Building Pasig City’s Inclusive Digital Fintech Ecosystem

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By integrating digital tools with trusted community practices, the Pasig City initiative created an inclusive financial ecosystem that strengthens resilience, trust, and access for underserved households.

Partner: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Philippines, Pasig City Government

Project Duration: April  2021

Capabilities:

Seeing Systems: Systems and Social Research, Cross sector learning Lab, Narrative and Power Mapping, Portfolio of Solutions and Exploration Design

Designing Change: Service Design, UX / Product Design

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Context

For many low-income Filipinos, money flows more through neighbors than banks—anchored in trust, relationships, and informal collectives like paluwagan. During the 2020 pandemic, the shift to digital payments left these households behind, hindered by lack of IDs, devices, connectivity, and trust. To address this gap, the UNDP Accelerator Lab partnered with KindMind and the Pasig City government to pilot inclusive and accessible digital financial services that bridge formal fintech platforms with everyday financial practices.

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The Challenge

How can fintech be shaped to work with, not against, the everyday financial practices of underserved households?

In Pasig City, many low-income households remain outside the reach of formal financial systems. The barriers are structural and cultural:

• Lack of required IDs for opening digital wallets
  
  
• Limited access to smartphones and internet connectivity
  
  
• Distrust of digital systems, heightened by fears of scams
  
  
• Deep reliance on informal collectives (paluwagan, umpukan) that thrive on trust and personal ties
  
  

While fintech platforms like GCash and PayMaya exist, adoption among the underserved is limited. Informal practices feel safer, more relational, and embedded in daily life. This posed a central tension: how can DFS be designed to complement, not displace, the trusted systems that already work for communities?

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The Approach

KindMind, together with the UNDP Accelerator Lab and the Pasig City government, set out to explore this question. Guided by its Braver Business by Design systemic approach, KindMind developed the 3D Framework of Discover, Design, and Deliver, executed in three strategic phases – ethnographic research, collaborative ideation lab, and rapid development of a portfolio of experiments. Through these approaches, the team aimed to explore how fintech could understand, rather than disrupt, the real financial practices of the communities, then shape interventions that reflect, not ignore, their daily realities.

What We Did

• Discover: Adaptive ethnography revealed that informal collectives outperformed digital wallets in trust and accessibility.
  
  
• Design: A virtual Ideation Lab with 27 stakeholders generated ideas, leading to prototypes: a hyperlocal e-commerce marketplace and a tricycle-enabled delivery and payments service.
  
  
• Deliver: The City enhanced its existing Pasig Yaman Marketplace, guided by inclusive design, service blueprinting, and community onboarding.

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The Systemic Impact

The project reframed financial inclusion in several ways:

• Financial Technology or Fintech is not a silver bullet: Digital tools were redesigned to complement trusted informal practices rather than replace them, ensuring usability and accessibility for underserved communities.
  
  
• Cultural and Behavior Shift: By acknowledging structural and emotional barriers, the project fostered trust in digital solutions and reinforced the importance of equity-centered design.

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• Design for Equity: People & Capacity: Timely, contextual, and trusted financial literacy empowered households to adopt digital financial services confidently, bridging gaps between informal and formal systems. Designing for equity means adapting to underserved contexts, not expect adaptation to middle-class tech.

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• Governance & Strategy: Insights shaped Pasig City’s Financially Inclusive Pasig Vision, establishing aligned KPIs and a roadmap to guide the adoption and scaling of inclusive digital financial services. These insights informed Pasig City’s Financially Inclusive Pasig Vision, establishing a baseline for KPIs and next steps for adoption of DFS.

The Systemic Agenda

Financial inclusion is not just about technology—it is about trust, relationships, and co-creating systems that work for communities. By bridging informal practices with digital tools, Pasig City together with KindMind, established the beginning of a resilient, accessible, and dignified financial ecosystem.

SDG 1, 8, 10, 17

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About the Program

The Financially Inclusive Pasig initiative, led by UNDP and KindMind, piloted inclusive digital financial services that bridge informal practices with technology, building trust, resilience, and equitable access for low-income households.

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