BSP: NPSA to create a level-playing field

The signing into law of the National Payment Systems Act (NPSA) or Republic Act (RA) No. 11127, will ensure an efficient regulation of the country’s payment systems and create similar opportunities for all players, according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr.

In a statement Monday, Espenilla said: “The NPSA will foster a level playing field for all participants as they will now be governed by a single overarching legal and regulatory framework. This will bring about more competition, greater efficiency, and foster digital innovations for both banking and payments products and services.”

Malacañang released the new law on October 30. Espenilla said the NPSA empowers the central bank to oversee, supervise and regulate payment systems for the “stability and effectiveness of the monetary and financial system.”

The BSP’s policy-making body, the Monetary Board, has six months upon effectivity of the law which was November 30, to issue guidelines for the registration of all payment systems operators. The implementing rules and regulations or IRR, to be issued by the BSP, will provide “guidance to new entities covered under the NPSA on how to comply with the requirements of said law,” said the BSP.

Under the NPSA’s transitory provision, it said payment systems “existing on the day of the effectivity of the law shall be given sufficient time, as may be determined by the BSP, to comply with the requirements of the NPSA.”

Under the law, the BSP will coordinate with other regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission to “avoid gaps, inefficiencies, duplications, and inconsistencies” in regulating other systems related to or interconnected with payment systems such as in securities transactions.

The BSP said RA No. 11127 will also provide a legal and regulatory framework that will maintain a payment system “necessary to control systemic risk and providing an environment conducive to the sustainable growth of the economy.”