(Bloomberg) -- More than an hour after delivering a speech in California, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. appeared halfway across the globe in Singapore.
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To juggle these speaking engagements, Marcos used a hologram — a three-dimensional projection of his image. He’s the lone speaker at the Singapore Fintech Festival to tap this technology that’s being explored by startups and giants like Google and Microsoft Corp. as a novel way to communicate.
As he appeared in the middle of a purplish vortex animation, Marcos said the Southeast Asian nation will prioritize digitalizing cash transactions.
“We will keep our fintech ecosystem open to collaboration with a wide array of stakeholders, both domestically and internationally,” said the president who’s attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in San Francisco.
The Philippine central bank is targeting half of retail payment transactions to be done digitally this year. The share of digital payments in retail transactions grew to 42.1% last year based on data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, with the pandemic accelerating adoption.
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