Single platform for e-payment pushed

MACTAN, Cebu – A single platform for electronic payment system in the country is still being pushed for by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), a move that the central bank intends to start working on as early as next year.

BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. said the central bank still wants a unified electronic payment (epayment) system for all transactions in the country.

He said this is going to be part of the establishment of National Retail Payment System (NRPS) in the country that aims to facilitate easier transfer between accounts, unify ATMs (automated teller machines), mobile money, and POS (electronic point-of-sale).

“The NRPS actually brings in two bricks together and so many different actors into the picture so why level up with the lines and the dialogues there,” Espenilla said on the sidelines of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings being held here in Cebu.

“There are also conversations going on with respect to how telecommunication companies’ subsidiaries that are involved in providing e-money are able to interoperate in their own platforms.

So the idea is to go to one e-money product to another e-money product. There is a specific work program that's been hammered out to bring them to that point as early as next year,” he further said.

The telcos in the country that separately operate their respective mobile payment systems are Globe Telecom, Inc. and Smart Communications, Inc. The idea of the BSP is to put up a unified system for the Filipino consumers.

It was already explained before that the NRPS should help the country’s financial system improve its monetary exchange and enhance money transactions through inter-operability of operational networks.

In line with this, an agreement was already forged between ATM operators Bancnet and Megalink earlier this year.