SWIFT eyes NRPS participation
SWIFT, a global player in the secure message system for payment transactions, will be a major partner of the country’s National Retail Payment System (NRPS), the Philippines’ first electronic retail payment system infrastructure for domestic and international operations.
In fact, SWIFT chief executive for Asia and Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa Alain Raes said the NRPS is a critical ingredient in the country’s entry into the Asean Economic Community (AEC).
In a presentation, Raes said SWIFT was coordinating with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Philippine banks to develop the NRPS.
“The target is to get it working by 2017,” he said.
BSP Deputy Gov. Nestor Espenilla confirmed that the presence of SWIFT in the developing the first electronic retail payment system infrastructure was important.
He made it clear that the BSP is as much a part of the development of the NRPS as domestic banks and the payment system player.
“We all presently use SWIFT as a secure message system for domestic and international payments transactions,” Espenilla said. “As we upgrade, SWIFT will continue to play a role through their business partnerships with the payments system players.”
The AEC requires a harmonization of tariffs, platforms, regulations, taxation, and electronic payment systems. Since most of the country’s neighbors are relatively mature in its electronic platforms, SWIFT insisted that it was imperative for the Philippines to speed up its uptake.
Philippine banks have been strong proponents of correspondent banking but that this mode of banking partnerships is giving way to electronic platforms.
The good news is that Philippine traffic data for financial transactions has been growing by 15 percent yearly.
Raes said that financial messaging or transactions in the Philippines averages 45,000 per day, or 10-million per year.
In terms of payments, it has been growing by 13.7 percent, faster than the Asean average of 6.1 percent.
Traffic for securities payments grew by 17.6 percent, treasury by 9.3 percent and trade by 1.9 percent.