The Philippines: A Bright Spot

Philippine property giant Megaworld spent three decades carving out bustling townships from emerging urban spaces and growth areas. Now it’s applying that successful approach to beachfront properties as well, with an ambitious portfolio of coastal developments taking shape throughout the Philippines.

Shifting trends in Philippine real estate are drawing investors toward the islands’ coastal towns. Increasingly sophisticated Filipino buyers are seeking more laid-back environments away from congested urban centers. Developers are taking their cue, shifting from busy urban towers to beachside townships in areas traditionally known as vacation or retirement destinations. Beyond their inherent natural attractions, these emerging coastal destinations are now also considered desirable places to live, work, invest and build businesses. By bringing the conveniences and connectivity of the cities to towns with already established potential for tourism and leisure, savvy developers are responding to the demand for new residential and commercial projects in these budding hotspots.

Going Coastal

At the forefront of the coastal charge is Megaworld, a company that has spent more than three decades refining the model for master-planned communities in the Philippines. The company marked its 35th anniversary in 2024 by winning a record-breaking 35 awards at the PropertyGuru Philippines Property Awards, including its first ESG awards for sustainability design and energy efficiency. Since breaking ground on Eastwood City in Quezon City in the early 1990s, Megaworld has built 37 townships and lifestyle estates spanning more than 7,000 hectares nationwide, encompassing more than 800 residential developments and 22 hotel properties.

Rather than just building stand-alone resorts or subdivisions, the company is now applying its successful integrated model to the Philippines’ extensive coastline, developing townships that bring homes, hotels, offices, retail, dining and tourism facilities together within a single beachfront destination.

Boracay Newcoast: The Flagship

Leading its resort portfolio is the 150-hectare Boracay Newcoast. Located on the popular vacation island’s more private northeast side facing the Sibuyan Sea, the township is operated by Megaworld subsidiary Global-Estate Resorts, Inc.

Three Megaworld-operated hotels, the Savoy, the Belmont and the upcoming Chancellor, stand alongside the exclusive Newcoast Village. Guests and residents can enjoy choice views of the sea, the mountains or the township itself. Newcoast was built to function as a self-contained coastal destination, with a dedicated jetty port, the vibrant Newcoast Beachwalk commercial district, a 1,200-seat convention center, and its very own stretch of white-sand beach rounding out the estate.

Cebu: A Beach with Global Reach

In Lapu-Lapu City, part of Metro Cebu, the country’s second most prominent metropolitan area, Mactan Newtown extends the live-work-play model to the waterfront. Just 15 minutes from Mactan-Cebu International Airport, the 30-hectare township features residential condominiums, office towers and hotels, including the Savoy Hotel Mactan and Mercure Mactan Cebu. Anchored by Mactan Expo, Megaworld’s first stand-alone convention center, the hub boasts its own beach and a range of event, retail, and dining options, including two Gordon Ramsay concept restaurants.

The township also hosts two of Cebu’s most anticipated annual gastronomic festivals: one for Cebu lechon in August and another for Cebu mangoes each May. That combination of capacity, convenience and connectivity was fully demonstrated when Mactan Newtown hosted the 48th ASEAN Summit and the Ironman 70.3 race, reinforcing Megaworld’s position as a key player in the large-scale sports, meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (S-MICE) industry.

Palawan: Ecosystems and Economics

Megaworld’s most ambitious coastal venture on the horizon is Paragua Coastown, a 462-hectare township in San Vicente, Palawan. The area is famed for its 14-kilometer white-sand beach, said to be the longest in the Philippines and the second-longest in Southeast Asia.

Envisioned as the company’s first eco-tourism township, the 40-billion-peso (US$639.4 million) development will harmonize with Palawan’s uniquely rich ecology. Its master plan integrates a beachside village, beachfront hotels, residential condominiums, a mangrove forest park and flood-resilient infrastructure. It’s a long-term bet on one of the country’s most promising tourism corridors, built around creating local economic opportunities, as well as shaping a sustainable resort worthy of the location.

Batangas: The Next Waves

A smooth drive down the expressways south of Manila leads to Batangas, where Megaworld is at work on two distinct coastal experiences. Lialto Beach and Golf Estates in Lian carves a private retreat around a residential village, an 18-hole golf course, a beach clubhouse and nearly a kilometer of coastline, with a 20-meter-tall lighthouse standing as its signature landmark. Expansive residential lots, from 300 square meters up to 1,200 square meters, offer the irreplaceable luxury of breathing space.

In nearby Nasugbu, Nascala Coast spans 116 hectares of residential villages, beachside condominiums and commercial space overlooking Nasugbu Bay. The community’s centerpiece is Villa Scala, featuring a cliffside clubhouse designed with a contemporary take on Positano-style Mediterranean architecture.

Ilocos: Leading North

At the northern edge of the island of Luzon, Ilocandia Coastown in Laoag City marks Megaworld’s first township in the region. The 84-hectare, 15-billion-peso (US$239.8 million) development is anchored by the Ilocandia Beach Village, a seaside community combining homes, leisure and hospitality in one destination. Beachfront areas, landscaped grounds, dining and retail offerings will serve residents and visitors alike. Its planned beach club, inspired by Singapore’s Sentosa Island and Sydney’s Manly and Bondi beaches, would be the first of its kind for the province.

Sunrise on the Shores

Megaworld is investing close to US$1 billion into its coastal expansion, with projects spread across more than 800 hectares of land throughout the Philippine archipelago. This expansive investment reflects Megaworld’s confidence in tourism and retirement properties pulling more growth beyond Metro Manila and its immediate environs. Megaworld built its name on the results of its master-planning methodology, one township at a time. The coast is where it finds out how well the formula travels.

www.megaworldcorp.com

The Philippines’ largest digital finance platform shows how bridging the country’s low-hanging financial access gaps can unlock high-value business, accelerating an entire population’s fintech transformation.

For generations, most Filipinos had limited access to formal ways to save, borrow or move money beyond cash. That gap has narrowed rapidly in recent years, driven by the rise of homegrown digital platforms such as GCash. Launched in 2004 as a simple SMS-based way to send funds between mobile numbers, the super app has become the default financial platform for tens of millions of Filipinos that the conventional banking system had overlooked. What began as a mobile wallet for the economically underserved is now a foundation of the country’s digital economy, proof that innovation and inclusion can grow together.

The Math of Inclusion

As of March 2026, GCash counted 40.4 million monthly active users, about 55% of the Philippines’ adult population and roughly four times the reach of its nearest competitor. Payment volume alone reached 17 trillion pesos (US$271.8 billion) in gross transaction value in 2025, with 4.75 trillion pesos (US$76 billion) processed in the first quarter of 2026 alone, up 23% from the same period a year earlier. Beyond payments, Mynt’s lending arm Fuse Financing has become one of the country’s largest providers of credit for Filipinos who previously faced hurdles to accessing any.

By the first quarter of 2026, Fuse had disbursed more than 406 billion pesos (US$6.5 billion) in loans to over 11.1 million unique borrowers. Fuse is also extending that reach to entrepreneurs, but with a deliberate emphasis on social and economic equity. In 2025, it secured a US$30 million loan facility from the Asian Development Bank, with 60% of the funding specifically targeting women-owned small businesses and MSMEs in provinces with a high incidence of poverty.

Doing Good Business by Doing Good

Mynt’s financial performance has grown alongside its efforts to foster financial inclusion, thus expanding the market for its services in a positive feedback loop. The company’s adjusted revenues climbed from 33.6 billion pesos (US$537.3 million) in 2023 to 79.7 billion pesos (US$1.3 billion) in 2025, with net income more than doubling to 17.2 billion pesos (US$275 million) over the same period. That momentum carried into 2026, with first-half revenue reaching 43.3 billion pesos (US$689.4 million), up 10.4% from 39.2 billion pesos (US$624.2 million) a year earlier.

The pattern holds across Mynt’s wider portfolio of products as well. Its stock trading platform, GStocks PH, grew registered users to 1.7 million in 2025, up 65% from the year before, while GInsure sold nearly triple the insurance policies it had the year prior, reaching 132.6 million life-to-date on a user base that grew 45% to 20.6 million.

Martha Sazon, President and CEO of Mynt, says, “We built GCash with the vision that access to a bank account, a loan, investments or insurance should be an easy transaction for all. Digital financial services serve as an entry point for Filipinos into digital tools for their everyday lifestyle needs. For us, financial inclusion isn’t just a corporate social responsibility initiative; it flows from our belief that there is good business in doing good.”

Beyond the Wallet

GCash is now woven into everyday Filipino life across the archipelago, reaching beyond the country’s major urban centers and middle class. Mynt says 92% of GCash users come from lower socioeconomic segments, while 78% are based outside Metro Manila.

In 2025, its mobile wallet operator, G-Xchange, Inc., partnered with the national government to bring QR, card and NFC payments to buses and rail lines. Tools like Pera Outlet Plus have turned neighborhood stores and eateries into local hubs for cash-in, cash-out, bills payment and other everyday transactions, giving small business owners an additional source of income. Its Virtual U.S. Account, launched in late 2025, allows Filipino freelancers and remittance recipients to have U.S. dollar payments deposited directly into their e-wallets. Each product targets a friction point that has previously gatekept Filipinos out of traditional brick-and-mortar banking.

The broader market bears this out. According to a survey commissioned by the Philippines’ central bank, the share of Filipino adults with a formal financial account jumped to 58% in the first quarter of 2026, up from 48% a year earlier. This surge was attributed largely to e-wallet adoption. As the country’s most-used finance app, GCash is at the forefront of that shift.

Navigating the Future

“No matter how the market moves, we’ll remain true to our goals,” Sazon says. “To get more people to use a safe, seamless platform that works for them, that they can trust. What hasn’t changed is our purpose. ‘Making Filipinos’ Everyday Lives Better’ remains central to everything that we do at GCash.”

As the Philippines chairs ASEAN this year under the theme “Navigating Our Future, Together,” GCash’s rise offers the region a working model worth emulating. By filling the gaps in a country’s financial infrastructure and looking out for the otherwise overlooked, the company has built an indispensable platform that is both globally competitive and profitable. For a nation betting its future on digital transformation, that may be Mynt’s most valuable achievement yet.

Mynt is the parent company of GCash, the Philippines’ #1 Finance Super App, advancing its vision of “Finance for All” by making financial services more accessible to Filipinos. Its portfolio includes G-Xchange, Inc., which handles GCash’s digital payments and e-money operations, and Fuse Financing, Inc., which provides fair, digitally enabled credit. Mynt is a committed supporter of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with particular focus on financial inclusion, safety and security, diversity and equity, and climate action.

Learn more at mynt.com.ph.

Even as Philippine buyers grow more selective while the rest of the market works through prevailing challenges, Shang Properties is finding that restraint, not volume, is the better strategy for luxury real estate.

The Philippine property sector has entered a period of adjustment, with buyers weighing location, build quality and a developer’s track record more heavily than before.

Shang Properties, Inc. has navigated this more prudent landscape by continuing to develop for clearly defined markets, at a pace set by actual demand and construction progress rather than sales targets. The results back up the astuteness of that approach. Unit sales rose to 697.3 million pesos (US$11 million) in the second quarter of 2026, up from 469.6 million pesos (US$7.5 million) a year earlier, helping lift revenue by 9.3% to 2.73 billion pesos (US$43.7 million) and attributable net income 30.4% to 981.8 million pesos (US$15.7 million).

The luxury and upscale tier has proven more resilient than the broader condominium market. Pre-selling take-up in the segment reached 85.2% in Metro Manila, according to Jones Lang LaSalle’s 2025 year-end data, even as some developers elsewhere have leaned on discounts and extended payment terms to move inventory.

Resilience, for Shang Properties, comes from being responsive to the market, particularly in how projects are positioned. By staying attuned to customers’ evolving priorities, developers can adapt to shifting needs and expectations.

Precision Development: Targeting Demand Where It Matters

Three developments launched over the past three years account for much of Shang Properties’ momentum. Each was built around a strategic location and a distinct target market.

The company is building Shang Summit, two towers rising 250 meters amid the bustling South Triangle area of Quezon City, a hub for major media companies, leading universities and commercial centers. Designed for multigenerational families, the project is positioned near key rail and subway connections.

Laya in Pasig City stands close to the established Ortigas and BGC business districts, home to major corporations and institutions. The project targets younger professionals and international buyers, with a 67-story tower offering flexible layouts and price points.

Shang Bauhinia Residences in the dynamic tourism and business hub of Cebu is the company’s pioneering development outside Metro Manila. Marketed as the city’s first luxury vertical gated village, the project features a 4,000-square-meter clubhouse. Shang Summit and Shang Bauhinia Residences both earned top honors at the Asia Pacific Property Awards in 2025, while Laya bagged an award at this year’s event.

Strong Track Record, Higher Standards

As buyers become more discerning, reputation carries greater weight. Shang Properties has been developing premium projects in the Philippines since 1987, banking on decades of consistent quality and service spanning an impressive portfolio that includes Shangri-La Plaza, The Enterprise Center, The Shang Grand Tower, The St. Francis and One Shangri-La Place.

Recurring income from diversified businesses across its commercial, retail and hospitality interests affords Shang Properties the luxury of taking a more measured and disciplined approach to expansion. Moving into Quezon City and Cebu was a decision made not just for the sake of scale, but with the strategic conviction that the company could create meaningful value in those markets.

Sustained investment and growth in higher tier segments reflect the industry’s confidence in the long-term potential of Philippine real estate. Shang Properties expects to further its success by focusing on more select locations for well-defined targets, delivering at the highest standards that discriminating buyers will continue to seek out.

www.shangpropertiesinternationalsales.com