Filipinos Leaned to Embrace FinTech Amid the Pandemic

Filipinos have further embraced digital transactions and the digitalization of payments amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which helped the country’s economy to still have activity albeit limited.

According the data from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the volume of PESONEt transactions in 2020 grew by an enormous 376-percent year-on-year to 15.3 million last year, which in value amounts to PHP951.6 billion.

The said amount experienced a growth of 188 percent compared to 2019.

InstaPay transactions for 2020 also increased to 86.7 million, which is 459-percent higher than 2019’s numbers.

PESONet and InstaPay are BSP’s two clearing houses under its National Retail Payment System (NRPS) program.

The growth of digital transactions in the country is in part also due to the increased downloads for digital financial services apps in the first four months of 2020 as Filipinos sought alternative, cashless forms of payment amid the quarantine protocols that were mandated during the said months.

BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno in his speech during the Ulat ng BSP sa Bayan (BSP’s Report to the Nation), which was live-streamed over the central bank’s Facebook page, that the pandemic served as a boost for BSP to increase digital payment transactions in the country as the preference of people leaned more towards cashless transactions.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has indeed unexpectedly catalyzed the rapid acceleration of digital transformation. The BSP took this opportunity to advance initiatives to push digitalization in the financial industry further,” he said.

He added that the Filipino’s gradual embrace of financial technology prepared everyone for the worst.

“It is a good thing that the country had been gradually embracing financial technology even before the pandemic hit. For me, it prepared us for the worst,” he further added.

As Filipinos shifted to cashless transactions, automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawals dipped in 2020, as well as demand for coins, which dropped by 57-percent last year.

The central bank chief partly attributed these to digitalization, saying that it is due to “more accessible and more convenient e-payment options”, coupled with the softer economic activities during the period.

With the constantly increasing use of digital payments services, Diokno said that a reliable and stable internet connection is a necessity for the country. (GFB)