PESONet transactions soar 48% in H1

Payment transactions via PESONet increased by 48.1 percent year-on-year as of end-June, boosted by the multi-batch settlement (MBS) facility, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

PESONet’s MBS total value stood at ₱2.I trillion in the first half of 2022. By volume, processed transactions also increased by 28.7 percent to 40.8 million during the period.

The MBS was introduced in January this year. It is an automated clearing house established under the BSP’s National Retail Payment System. It increased the frequency of PESONet settlements from once to twice a day. Specifically, it increased the frequency by which payments are received by beneficiaries, allowing for faster clearing and settlement of personal transactions.

PESONet is a batch electronic fund transfer system intended as alternative, if not to eventually replace, paperbased cheque system. The BSP said it will reduce the production cycle time and should improve business productivity as funds are received by and made available to the payees sooner.

“Through PESONet, businesses, the government, and individuals will be able to conveniently initiate electronic fund transfers and recurring payments from the sender’s accounts maintained in BSP supervised financial institution (BSFIs), such as banks and other nonbank electronic money issuers, to corresponding recipient accounts in other BSFIs,” said the BSP.

The BSP said it remains on track in its plan to introduce three additional e-payment streams Bills Pay, Requestto-Pay and Direct Debit possibly the last two quarters of the year.

The three incoming e-payment streams will help broaden the use of digital payments over the next two years and achieve the migration of 50 percent of all payment transactions into digital form by next year.

The interoperable Bills Pay and Request-to-Pay facilities will run through InstaPay while the Direct Debit is via PESONet.

The Request-to-Pay facility allows payers to effectively manage recurring, non-urgent bills such as rents, loan amortizations and insurance premiums.

The Bills Pay facility, meantime, allows customers to pay their bills such as electricity, water, and telephone bills even if the transaction accounts of the customer and the biller are in different payment service providers. The facility will enable a more efficient collection among billers.

As for Direct Debit, customers can better manage their recurring payments such as monthly rentals by simply authorizing the payees to pull funds from the account of the payors. The facility allows customers conveniently pay monthly bills such as rentals, amortizations, insurance, among others.

As of end-2021, about 30.3 percent of total retail payments have shifted in electronic payments or e-payments, closer to the target of digitizing 50 percent of all transactions by next year.

The e-payments total in terms of volume is higher compared to 20.1 percent in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. The lockdowns and mobility restrictions made it possible for millions of Filipinos to switch to digital payments or online transactions.

In terms of value, 44.1 percent of total retail payments are in digital form, up from 26.8 percent in 2020.