The BSP was eyeing offline digital payment solutions.
BSP — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said on Tuesday that it was eyeing offline digital payment solutions in order to allow transactions without the need for an internet connection.
The central bank said in a statement that offline digital payments solutions will boost financial inclusion in off-grid areas.
According to BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno, while an effective and reliable internet connectivity is a necessary condition for digital finance to flourish, the central bank was also pursuing digital solutions in order to enable “offline payments”.
The central bank also said that it was working on the said initiative under the DPTR (Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap) which aimed to convert 50 percent of the volume of retail payments into digital form and onboard 70 percent of Filipino adults to the formal financial system by 2023.
Earlier, the central bank said that digital payments volume had reached 20 percent in 2020.
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A BSP report stated that 20.1 percent of monthly payments volume were digitally done by the end of 2020, a substantial improvement over 6 months from last year’s first semester estimateD which pegged digital payments volume at 17 percent.
Likewise, the central bank said that the value of digital payments substantially grew from 25 percent to 26.8 percent for the same period.
The increased usage of digital payments, according to the central bank, was largely driven by high-frequency, low-value retail transactions such as person-to-person (P2P) payments and person-to-merchant payments.
Moreover, the central bank said that the health protocols that entailed social mobility restrictions in response to the pandemic have emerged to be a strong catalyst for the wider adoption of digital payments in the Philippines.
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