MANILA, Philippines — BTI Payments Philippines Inc. is ramping up the deployment of payment kiosks all over the country to boost the financial inclusion efforts of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
BTI Payments CEO Dan Ibarra said in an interview with The STAR that the leading self-service payment kiosk operator in the Philippines continues to further strengthen the presence of fast and easy payments in the country to provide safe and hassle-free transactions to consumers.
Ibarra said BTI Payments aims to deploy 2,300 Pay&Go kiosks all over the country by June next year from the current number of 1,700.
He said that this would help translate to a 42.8 percent jump in number of users to about 10 million from the existing seven million users.
“Again the market that we are addressing is quite big,” he said.
A wholly-owned subsidiary of Australia-based Banktech, BTI Payments is certified by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) as an operator of payments systems that develops and deploys payments kiosks and independent ATMs.
Pay&Go kiosks allow customers to easily conduct their financial errands in one machine. For one, Pay&Go users could add funds into their GCash and Maya digital wallets.
Ibarra said the number of Pay&Go users pale in comparison with GCash that has a customer base of about 86 million, while Maya has around 40 million.
“That’s the reason why we feel that being able to target this growing base or getting more activity from this base of financial models could be very key. That’s the one that will drive us for the next five to 10 years,” he said.
Bills payment for all major billers and purchase of airtime load for all telcos are also available at Pay&Go kiosks.
It also has an extensive suite of partners and billers, including GCash, Maya, Bayad, Globe, Smart, PLDT, Converge, Maya, Meralco, Maynilad, Social Security System, Grab, ShopeePay, Autosweep and Easytrip.
The Pay&Go kiosks that are capable of accepting cash for bills payments, mobile top up and e-money cash-in are situated in Ayala Malls, Mercury Drug, SMDC, NCCC Malls as well as Robinsons supermarket, Metro, Shopwise, Waltermart, Ever, Ultra Mega supermarket, Super 8 Grocery Warehouse, Lawson, Robinsons Easymart and the Marketplace.
The availability of Pay&Go kiosks in frequently visited locations adds much-needed accessibility and comfort for on-the-go Filipinos.
Ibarra said the number of transactions handled by the payment kiosks surged especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He pointed out that Filipinos continued to enjoy the convenience with the use of payment kiosks as the growth was sustained at a pace of about 70 percent with 2.8 million transactions handled for November alone this year.