Visa: More Filipinos using debit cards
More Filipinos are using debit cards as they become better at ease with electronic payments and doing away with cash transactions.
Last year, Visa saw 25.5 percent growth in total transactions through Visa cards transactions in the Philippines, driven largely by debit card usage. Visa’s total debit card payment volume as of December 2014 increased by 38 percent from 2013.
“Digitization of payments is an emerging trend that financial institutions and other industries are recognizing and catering to because of the convenience and safety it provides to consumers,” explained Visa Country Manager for the Philippines and Guam Stuart Tomlinson.
To date, cash continues to be the predominant payment method in the Philippines, accounting for over 82 percent of all trade activities. This, however, is seen to change in the years to come.
Visa considers the debit card segment, composed of young adults, as part of its strategic focus in the Philippines and one of the key growth drivers in the payments industry.
Young adults account for 20 percent of the country’s discretionary consumption, spending an average of R1,760 (USD 40) on non-basic items . By 2020, this segment is expected to make up 50 percent of the country’s total discretionary expenditure.
To increase card usage in the Philip- pines, Visa is focusing on three key areas.
First is encouraging the adoption of contactless payment, which plays an important role in spurring everyday usage. There has been steady increase in payments made with Visa payWave, with payment volume increasing by 25.6 percent in March 2015. Currently there are 5,000 Visa payWave acceptance points in the country.
Second is the enhancement of security features. Visa has been supporting banks to implement strict anti-fraud features such as Verified by Visa and EMV chip technology.
Visa was chosen by BancNet to provide the technology and know-how to convert all magnetic stripe cards to EMV chip enabled cards by January 2017 as mandated by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.