MANILA, Philippines — The amount of electronic fund transfers via PESONet and InstaPay jumped by over 30 percent to P9.24 trillion from January to September versus last year’s P7.08 trillion, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.
During the nine-month period, the volume of PESONet and InstaPay transactions surged by 40.4 percent to 638.9 million this year from 454.9 million in the same period last year.
PESONet and InstaPay are automated clearing houses, launched under the BSP’s National Retail Payment System (NRPS), aimed at promoting a safe, efficient, affordable, inclusive and reliable retail payment system.
PESONet enables high-value transactions and may be considered as an electronic alternative to the paper-based check system, while InstaPay is a real-time, low value electronic fund transfer facility for transactions up to P50,000 and is most useful for remittances and e-commerce.
From January to September, the value of PESONet transactions went up by 24 percent to P5.69 trillion from a year-ago level of P4.58 trillion, while that of InstaPay jumped by 42 percent to P3.55 trillion from P2.5 trillion.
Last year, the combined value of PESONet and InstaPay transactions jumped by 36 percent to P9.94 trillion from P7.24 trillion in 2021 as volume increased by 21 percent to 633.46 million from 523.59 million, with more Filipinos choosing to transact online as an offshoot of the strict COVID quarantine and lockdown protocols.
Under its Digital Payment Transformation Roadmap, the central bank aims to shift 50 percent of total retail transactions to electronic channels and onboard at least 70 percent of Filipino adults to the financial system through the ownership and use of a transaction account by 2023.
With the pandemic serving as catalyst, the share of digital payments to total retail transactions further increased to slightly over 42.1 percent in 2022 after increasing to 30.3 percent in 2021.
Prior to the launch of the NRPS, the share of electronic payments to total retail transactions stood at a mere one percent in 2013.
Likewise, the number of banked Filipino adults almost doubled to 56 percent in 2021 from 29 percent in 2019.