Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno
MANILA -- Combined efforts of both the government and the private sector to increase digital payments in the country have resulted in higher value of transactions that account for about 20 percent of the total as of 2018.
In his speech during the first Digital Payments Leaders’ Summit held at the central bank office in Manila on Monday, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin Diokno said value of e-payments in the country reached only 8 percent in 2013.
E-payment usage was only 1 percent in 2013 but has increased to 10 percent in 2018.
These figures are based on the latest study of United Nations-based Better than Cash Alliance (BTCA).
“As you can see, both usage and value have increased, indicating that it is not only being used more frequently, but also that it is trusted with bigger values,” he said.
Result of the study also showed that women are more advanced in adopting digital payments options, which Diokno said is a positive development since this “affirms that significant progress towards the shift from cash-heavy to a cash-lite economy is attainable.”
The BSP recently launched the EGov Pay and piloted P2P payments using the machine-readable quick-response (QR) code.
“Through the help of our industry partners, especially the digital payments leaders, we hope not only to achieve our goal of a cash-lite economy sooner than later. And ultimately enable and empower more Filipinos to reap the benefits of a growing economy through digital payments,” he added. (PNA)
