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Espenilla backs liberalization of PH telco industry

By Joann Villanueva

October 30, 2017, 5:45 pm



MANILA - - Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. is open to any initiative that will liberalize the domestic telecommunication sector to further improve delivery of financial services in the country.

He sees “a lot of value” in opening up the telco industry to more players, from the current two, namely, Smart Communications and Globe Telecom.

“It is a main point for our approach of promoting digital delivery of financial services because of infrastructural issues,” he said.

The central bank has several programs that promote the use of technology to further improve the banking industry.

Among them is the National Retail Payment System (NRPS), which is aimed to fast track growth of electronic payment system in the country from the current one percent to around 20 percent of total payments by 2020.

BSP is set to launch this November the first clearing house under NRPS, specifically the batch electronic fund transfer (EFT) called PESO Net, eyed to allow the transfer of value from one bank account or electronic account to another.

Espenilla said opening up the telco services to more players will provide more competition and will result to better service delivery “which will benefit the whole financial system.”

“The trust issue is partly founded on the matter of reliability of services. So even though there is capability, if it cannot be depended upon, then people will hesitate to move to a different way of doing financial services,” he added.(PNA)

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