Invsta Says The Philippines Could be New Zealand’s Next Big Crypto Market

A cryptocurrency investor said that the Philippines offer a huge opportunity in the digital currency market.

With more than 100 million people, the Philippines offers a huge market opportunity for fintech companies, especially its young populace who are more tech-savvy and likely to buy cryptocurrencies than their elders. Rachel Strevens, co-founder of cryptocurrency investment platform Invsta made this assessment after joining a team of entrepreneurs who visited the Philippines recently as part of the Asia New Zealand Foundation delegation to understand how tech disruption is emerging in Southeast Asia.

“The biggest revelation for me was that the Philippines has an enormous potential market for financial services,” Strevens said.

She added that aside from its young population, the Philippines also provides other advantages like widespread use of the English language and a growing middle class with rising income.

“On top of this, the population is tech-savvy and very young, with a median age of just 23. Millennials are eight times more likely to buy Bitcoin than baby boomers, so it's an incredibly large and attractive market for us."

She explained that cryptocurrencies are proving their longevity and could find other purposes beyond trading. She added that blockchain, the underlying technology for digital currencies, also has many other uses.

At the same time, Strevens told New Zealand businessmen not to miss out on investment opportunities in the Philippines, saying that the Southeast Asian nation could be their next big export market. She noted that overlooking the Philippines could be a huge mistake and noted that only a few New Zealand-based businesses are harnessing the potential of the Philippines.

More importantly, an estimated 10 million Filipinos are working overseas and are sending nearly $30 billion annually back home. Strevens said that blockchain could provide the technology to streamline the traditional financial systems used by Filipinos to remit money.

“Crypto and blockchain technologies are speeding up the transaction time of transferring money around the world and this is having a huge impact on the remittance industry as people can move money back home faster at a lower cost,” she added.