Offline Payments: Bringing Digital Access to Remote Fishing Communities

Empowering Filipinos in Rural Areas

By: Phyra Templeton

Digital Transformation

Opportunities

Digital payments in the Philippines are quickly growing in popularity, yet a glaring gap remains: reliable internet connection in remote islands. 

As a result, millions of Filipinos in rural, coastal, and island communities experience delayed remittances, have limited access to credit, and are left to rely only on cash payments due to unstable internet. 

This digital divide between urban and rural areas is especially noticeable in regions with a high population of fisherfolk facing poverty and financial exclusion. 

Crunchfish and its offline payments technology in partnership with AltPayNet (APN), offers a real, innovative change in the Philippines, especially towards fisherfolks and cooperatives in remote areas of the country.  

What is Crunchfish? 

Crunchfish, a Swedish fintech company, specializes in offline payments or a solution they call Digital Cash. It makes transactions work reliably even when internet connectivity is slow or unavailable. 

Its core innovation lies in offline Layer-2 wallets, an extension to existing payment systems. This allows central banks, merchants, and payment networks to exchange verified payment information without real-time access to central servers. 

Transactions are captured between two devices through a QR code and later synched to the payment network once they have access to reliable internet.

Unlike conventional e-wallets that need constant connectivity, Crunchfish’s governed offline infrastructure is designed for low-bandwidth areas. 

Why offline payments matter in the Philippines

The Philippines is a young and rapidly developing country, but much of its population is found in rural communities where economic activity is shaped by agriculture, fisheries, and limited digital infrastructure. 

Despite digital payments accounting for 59.0% of retail payment value in 2024, nearly half of Filipino adults, or 49.80%, are still unbanked. 

Many remote areas in Visayas and Mindanao are still largely cash-dependent, with much lower financial inclusion.

For communities that live off the land and sea, unstable connectivity translates to delayed payments and income insecurity. 

Having offline-capable payments directly addresses these issues by allowing transactions to happen anytime, anywhere, regardless of signal strength.

Offline-capable payments for fisherfolks in remote areas

These are some of the practical use cases for fisherfolks and cooperatives around the Philippines that can greatly benefit from Crunchfish and AltPayNet’s technology:

1. Fisherfolk to cooperative: Fishermen are paid on the spot at landing sites via offline QR transactions on Layer‑2 wallets. 
2. Cooperative to ice plants: Co‑ops pay ice plants and cold‑storage operators through offline batch payments (per kilo or per storage day), generating instant digital receipts.
3. Cold storage to logistics: As seafood is consolidated for shipment, co-ops pay ferry operators offline, while logging batch data that sync later. 
4. Logistics to end markets: When products reach the supermarket, buyers can pay co-ops with compatible wallets that also work offline. 
5. Emergency flows: The same offline Layer-2 wallets can be used during typhoons or floods for accepting emergency aid and keeping funds accessible when normal channels aren’t available.

One more step to nationwide inclusion 

By embedding offline capability into existing payment schemes and aligning with BSP’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, APN and Crunchfish can help reduce the economic drag of cash, especially in remote areas and rural sectors such as fisheries, agriculture, and small‑scale retail. 

This project could show how resilient offline payments can lessen post-harvest losses, balance co-op cash flow, and protect livelihoods during disasters. 

If implemented properly, Crunchfish’s Digital Cash tech may provide a blueprint that can be replicated across vulnerable, underserved coastal areas throughout the Philippines.