September 18, 2026 l BusinessWorld
Philippine Capital Markets are not ready for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for trading, advising, or prediction as the country’s investor base remains hesitant about new technologies, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.
“Customers are resistant to the use [of AI in capital markets]. They’re hesitant, I think. They’re hesitant to use it because if it’s not familiar. At the end of the day, it goes back to what’s appropriate in the market. What are our products? How are we going to take it? So, it goes back to that because it should fit the client and the market,” BSP Technology & Digital Innovation Office Technical Advisor/Director, Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics Hub Mark Anthony B. Perez told reporters on the sidelines of an event on Friday last week.
He said the Philippines is not an outlier as the use of AI in capital markets is “not that extensive” even worldwide, with adoption largely dependent on market maturity.
“Roboadvisors became popular four or five years ago, but it didn’t fly. And I think it’s because maybe the technology was too early, or maybe people are not comfortable with it. So, maybe, I think it’s also the ability of people to adapt to this… People need to be ready to adapt to a new technology, and maybe it’s too soon,” Mr. Perez said.
Compared to retail use cases, Mr. Perez said using AI in the capital markets could be more complicated.
“I think, for one, AI in capital markets is a completely different ballgame as AI for retail, for example. What we’re talking about is market movements. I don’t know how comfortable people are to actually leave it to an algorithm or a model to do that. These ideas of algorithmic trading and all that, we are not ready for something like that at the moment.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Perez said being reliant on AI systems built by foreign entities also presents various risks to organizations.
“I was talking about AI asymmetry, … where you have the well-developed countries that have the concentrations of the AI, and the rest of the world is basically using their models and their systems,” he said. “So, this is why in many countries, they are starting to talk about AI sovereignty. And for you to be able to build that, you need several things. You need skills, you need infrastructure, you need capabilities.”
“Third-party risk is a problem worldwide because you can just count on your fingers the ones that are actually providing the top AI tools… In the past, there was an opportunity for technology to flow and move. But now, with cloud and all that, they don’t need to move. There’s platform as a service. There’s software as a service. There’s infrastructure as a service. So, while we might learn skills, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be able to build our own, which is why when you talk about AI asymmetry, you have to talk about AI sovereignty as well.”
Lessening dependence on AI systems made by third parties will allow for better cost control, regulation, and better datasets and behavioral patterns, Mr. Perez added.
Entities using AI will also need to consider these technologies’ impact on their environmental, social, and governance standards, he said. — Aaron Michael C. Sy
***The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office as well as FINEX. For comments, email benel_dba@yahoo.com. Photo is from Pinterest.