The Philippine economy risks losing about P603 billion annually, or nearly 3 percent of the gross domestic product, to illicit mule account networks unless stronger identity safeguards are put in place, a joint whitepaper by IDfy Philippines and CIBI Information Inc. said.
The report, “Mule Hunting: Are We Chasing Ghosts?,” analyzed transaction data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, which recorded P24.74 trillion in combined transaction flows through PESONet and InstaPay in 2025.
About P1.088 trillion of those transactions was at risk of digital fraud, with 55.4 percent directly tied to authorized push payment scams and account takeovers that rely on mule accounts to move stolen funds, the report said.
Hyper-accelerated digital adoption has fueled the vulnerability. The Philippines surpassed its target to digitize 50 percent of retail payments three years early, reaching 52.8 percent in 2023, a pace of growth that transnational syndicates have actively exploited, the report said.
Official cybercrime reporting remains low, at under 2 percent, despite the scale of the shadow economy. The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center found that 34 percent of Filipinos suffered financial scam losses, but victims rarely file formal complaints because of small transaction values and legal complexity, allowing weaponized mule accounts to stay active and unflagged for months, the report said.
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