THE Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) announced Thursday, April 16, 2020, that its retail digital transactions—which include money transfers to other BPI accounts, interbank transfers, transactions with e-commerce partners, bills payments—soared by more than 25 percent in just two weeks since the start of the enhanced community quarantine.

BPI chief digital officer Noel Santiago said for money transfers within BPI and BPI Family accounts, the numbers reached almost a million transactions. Interbank transactions via InstaPay reached close to 300,000, 50 percent more than pre-quarantine levels. In the last two weeks of March, BPI, through its retail digital platforms, facilitated more than 1.5 million transactions with a total value of close to P8 billion.

Furthermore, for those still requiring cash, the large BPI ATM network with its convenient locations processed 4.5 million ATM transactions, including one million of which was other bank’s customers. This brings about P21 billion in transaction amount for the period of March 16 to March 31.

“The transaction statistics has confirmed that digital banking is no longer just an option, but a mainstream financial service,” said Santiago. “People are realizing they can do financial transactions from the comfort of their homes. Our foresight and investments in digitalization prepared us to be ready in times like this.” (PR)