THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has reported an increase in QR payments, saying that the country is on track for its digital transformation.
BSP Gov. Benjamin Diokno, during the virtual groundbreaking ceremony of the UnionBank Innovation Campus, said the country has been able to move forward through innovation and digitalization.
“I am happy to report that the volume and value of QR Ph person-to-person (P2P) payments in February this year also increased by 22 percent and 26 percent respectively, compared to the figure posted a month earlier,” Diokno said.
In April, the BSP and the payment services industry launched the QR Ph person-to-merchant, or QR PH P2M, a digital payment stream which is expected to bring broad and wide-ranging benefits to both consumers and businesses.
The endeavor is expected to provide Filipinos with a convenient and safe alternative to traditional payment methods that use cash and coins.
BSP said QR Ph was developed for the adoption of an interoperable common QR code which may be scanned and interpreted by any participating bank or non-bank EMI for facilitating customers’ requests for fund transfers and payments.
Given such a feature, QR Ph can be used for digital person-to-person (P2P) transfers and person-to-merchants (P2M) payments through InstaPay.
Diokno said QR Ph is among the identified payment use cases under the digital payments streams, one of the pillars of the Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap.
“With digital finance infrastructures and digital governance and standards as its two other pillars, this roadmap is expected to build an environment that is conducive to the digital transformation of the country’s payments system,” he said.
In addition, the BSP also noted a steady rise in digital transactions in the country since the pandemic began.
“Combined transactions by electronic fund transfer facilities PESONet and InstaPay were higher by 348 percent in volume and 170 percent in value in February 2021 respectively, compared to figures recorded during the same month in 2020,” the central bank reported. (JOB)