BAGUIO CITY – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) encourages the public to use digital payment for their day-to-day transactions as they target to increase the percentage of the national population up to 70 percent who have e-wallets and utilize it for digital payment transactions.
Bank Officer V Ms. Maureen Franco of BSP Payments Policy and Development Department disclosed it to the Kapihan sa Baguio recently as they also explain the benefits of digital payment and the responsible way how to use it.
According to BSP, the number of people using digital payment has doubled since 2019; The data they presented was 10 percent in 2018, increased to 14 percent in 2019, 20 percent in 2020, and up to 30.2 percent in 2021.
“The key contributors to the overall growth of digital payments were merchant payments, person-to-person transfers, and business salaries and wages to employees which are all high-frequency low-value transactions,” Franco explained.
The number of registered e-wallets significantly rose to 237 percent. From almost 40 million registered accounts in 2018, the BSP gathered 138 million e-wallet accounts in 2020. These e-wallet accounts accumulated 1.7 billion digital payment transactions as of 2020 data.
As the BSP encourages the public to use digital payments, they highlighted the benefits the public can acquire when they use digital payments, some of which are; faster payment turnover, digital payment is a borderless trade and commerce, it is more transparent due to its reliable audit trail, and many more. “The BSP envisions to transform the Philippines to be a cash-lite economy as doing so will generate economic gains.” Franco stated.
Digital payment offers convenience to its users as well as economic growth due to its faster transaction, however, it is within its users to ensure the security of hard-earned money.
That is why the BSP advocates cyber hygiene to the public to secure the money to their e-wallets. They provide tips on how to secure your money in the digital realm; do not entertain messages from suspicious random people, do not share passwords or the One Time Password (OTP) during transactions, enable a two-step verification process, and alert notifications when transactions are being made to your account. These preventive measures can enhance someone’s cyber hygiene to protect their e-wallet accounts or when using it in a digital payment transaction. By Nicko Gatchalian
