The volume of electronic fund transfers in the Philippines has risen by 27 percent year-on-year, as of end-July 2018, with the help PesoNet.
Members of the Philippine Payments Management Inc. with BSP governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. (seated, right) during the press forum at the BSP office in Manila
PesoNet is the first automated clearing house (ACH) under the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) National Retail Payment System (NRPS) program. It was launched by the BSP and several financial institutions in November 2017.
To date, 58 financial institutions are part of PesoNet, which is implemented by the BSP-recognized and industry-led Philippine Payments Management Inc. (PPMI).
PPMI chair Justo A. Ortiz, in a briefing Tuesday, Aug. 7, said average PesoNet transfers to date is around 39,000 while in terms of value amounts to P3 billion per day. He said these figures “are very encouraging.”
“We hope to see more financial institutions to start using PesoNet, particularly thrift and rural banks, the non-bank electronic money issuers, and government corporations as PesoNet customers and businesses using PesoNet for disbursement as well as collections,” he said.
NRPS is seen to boost electronic payment transactions in the country to account to 20 percent of the total by 2020.
BSP governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. also told reporters on that the government can be a big contributor to the increase in electronic payment transactions in the country through disbursement of salaries of government employees and suppliers.
“The current arrangement is they have government banks and the government banks are already gearing up to be able to participate so it is just a question of months before they are ready that is why I am quite confident that 20-percent target is very doable,” he added. — Joann Villanueva (PNA)
