E-payments on the rise in the Philippines

MANILA: Filipinos are increasingly favouring contactless financial transactions as seen in the sustained uptrend in payments using facilities established under the central bank’s framework for electronic money transfers, according to the regulator.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor Benjamin Diokno said as of end-March, the combined volume of transfers of the PESONet platform has reached 39 million, while the value of fund transfers using the InstaPay system has reached 552 billion pesos (RM47bil). The figures represented four times the volume and thrice the value of combined PESONet and InstaPay transactions posted in March 2020, or a year since the pandemic began. — The Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN