Bank fund transfers nearly double in June

Digital payments through the automated clearing houses established by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reached P341 billion in June as the country transitioned to general community quarantine.

According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the value and volume of transactions under the InstaPay and the PESONet rose by 92 percent from the P178 billion recorded in January.

Likewise, the volume of transactions surged by 196 percent to 21 million last month from only 7.1 million in January.

PESONet launched in November 2017 is appropriate for high value transactions of companies, other businesses, government entities, and individuals, while InstaPay introduced in April 2018 is used for urgent and small value retail transactions of up to P50,000.

Both automated clearing houses are part of the National Retail Payment System (NRPS) launched in December 2015 to transform the country to cashlite from a cash heavy economy with digital payments accounting for 20 percent by 2020.

The BSP said InstaPay transfers jumped by 157 percent in terms of value to P100.3 billion in June from P39.1 billion in January as volume surged by 218 percent to 18.3 million transactions from 5.8 million transactions.

The regulator noted that the highest growth in terms of volume was recorded at 57 percent to 4.6 million transactions in May from 1.1 million in April.

On the other hand, PESONet transactions recorded a 73 percent surge to P240.6 billion in June from P138.88 billion in January as volume almost doubled to 2.21 million transactions from 1.32 million.

The BSP noted a drop in the volume of PESONet transactions from one million in June as the social amelioration of 3.2 million beneficiaries under the Social Security System’s small business wage subsidy (SBWS) program were disbursed by the government via PESONet in May.

For June, the BSP said top InstaPay sending participants include G-Xchange Inc. (GCash) with 6.41 million, BDO Unibank with 2.51 million, Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands with 1.99 million, PayMaya Philippines with 1.88 million, and Metropolitan

Bank & Trust Co. with 1.41 million, while receiving participants include GCash with 4.11 million, BDO with 4.1 million, BPI with 3.16 million, PayMaya with 1.1 million and Aboitiz-led Union Bank with 1.02 million.

On the other hand, top PESONet sending participants include Development Bank of the Philippines, UnionBank, Citibank, BDO, Bank of America, while top receiving banks include BDO, BPI, Metrobank, UnionBank, and Security Bank.

BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno has committed to raise the share of digital transactions in terms of value and volume to 50 percent by the end of his term in the middle of 2023 as part of efforts to transform the Philippines to a cash-lite economy.