IN an effort to further advance digitization in the country, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said it is currently working with the Philippines Payments Management Inc. (PPMI) to roll out more digital payments initiatives in the country.
BSP Governor Felipe M. Medalla said among the initiatives they are working on include advances on bills payment, payment automation and direct debit for both individuals and businesses.
“The BSP recognizes that there are still opportunities to further accelerate the development of an inclusive digital payments landscape in the country,” Medalla said.
For the “Bills Pay,” Medalla said they are looking to launch an interoperable bills pay facility to enable both individual and business customers to settle their bills conveniently and more economically. This is expected to be used for utilities, loan amortization and other recurring payments. The governor also said this will be made available in such a way that it is still usable even if customers and billers use different service providers.
Medalla said the implementation at the clearing switch operator level was already completed for this service in October last year for QR Ph P2B and is expected to service non-QR based payments by the end of the first quarter of next year.
Next, a facility called “Request to Pay,” which aims to empower payees to initiate collections by sending a “request to pay.”
“Payors only need to authorize the collection instruction from the payee by responding to the latter’s request,” Medalla said. This platform is expected to run by the second quarter of next year.
Lastly, the “Direct Debit” facility, which will allow customers to better manage their higher ticket recurring items that can be scheduled in advance such as monthly rentals, loan amortizations and insurance premiums. This will be done by authorizing billers to pull funds from the account of the payors. Medalla did not mention a date for the launch of the “Direct Debit” facility.
“The BSP stands firm in its commitment to foster an enabling policy environment and pursue collaborative partnerships with national payment system stakeholders to advance payments digitization,” the governor said.