SEC taps PayMaya for digital payments

MANILA, Philippines — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has tapped digital financial services firm PayMaya to provide local businesses with more convenient cashless options when paying for online services fees.

The SEC, in cooperation with the Bureau of the Treasury and the Land Bank of the Philippines, will integrate in its online portal the PayMaya Checkout payment gateway, enabling acceptance of any VISA, Mastercard, and JCB credit, debit and prepaid card, as well as PayMaya.

Through this initiative, the SEC will be able to process cashless payments for company registration, as well as other fees for business license, fines, penalties, seminars and trainings, among others.

SEC commissioner Kelvin Lee said the addition of PayMaya’s payment solutions provides a great push in the commission’s mandate as an enabler of the corporate sector and the capital market.

“This is but one of the many initiatives of the SEC to improve its services in order to effectively accomplish its mission to serve as the gateway to doing business in the Philippines and, as such, to provide a competitive and secure environment for easy company registration, efficient capital formation, and broad investor participation,” Lee said.

The corporate regulator has been strengthening its online services to serve more enterprises amid the pandemic by utilizing its online portal to offer services such as company registration and monitoring, and processing of requests for corporate documents.

“We’re happy to provide the SEC with the best-in-class cashless solutions to help in improving ease of doing business,” PayMaya founder and CEO Orlando Vea said.

“For many enterprises, cashless is fast becoming the default preference for transactions so this will be a very welcome development for them. We are excited to work with the SEC for this citizen-friendly initiative,” he said.

Aside from the SEC, businesses can also transact with other government agencies using PayMaya following partnerships with the likes of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Department of Trade and Industry, Bureau of Customs, Pag-IBIG Fund, Social Security System, and the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines for end-to-end business-to-government cashless payments acceptance via cards and e-wallets.

PayMaya said these collaborations are in support of the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018, which aims to streamline the current systems and procedures of government services.

To date, PayMaya has enabled over 60 government units in the national and local levels with cashless payment acceptance and disbursement solutions.

PayMaya, the digital financial services arm of PLDT’s Voyager Innovations, is the only end-to-end digital payments ecosystem enabler in the country with platforms and services that cut across consumers, merchants, and government.