SENATOR Grace Poe prodded the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to exert its influence to heed pleas to bring down charges on e-wallet and online financial transactions.
The presiding chairman of the 11-member Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies, Poe sought to enlist the support of the BSP to help convince financial institutions to lower fees in using digital wallet to pay for goods and services.
According to Poe, “millions of Filipinos” are already having difficulties making ends meet to feed their families as many remain jobless.
The senator added it would be “a big help” to hard-up Filipino workers if their expenses are not subjected to additional fees when they use digital wallets in financial transactions.
Poe pointed out that with the growing number of consumers using e-wallets and online-payment platforms, banks and financial institutions are also earning bigger income, likely more during lockdowns.
She noted that income statements of banks as reported by the Department of Supervisory Analytics, the BSP recorded P230-billion in total combined net income of banks across the country last December 2019.
It added this went down since March 2020 at the outset of the pandemic but started climbing since September 2021.
The BSP recorded the local banking industry posted a net profit of P223.66 billion as of end of December 2021.
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