Mastercard boosts cashless payment

MANILA, Philippines — Mastercard has partnered with Pine Labs to offer Filipino credit cardholders the flexibility to pay in interest-free monthly installments.

The Philippines is first among five Southeast Asian markets that will offer the Mastercard Installments with Pine Labs program to meet the growing consumer demand for more flexible payment options.

“Tapping into the expertise of Mastercard and Pine Labs allows us to easily integrate and scale our installment offerings. Having a single access point into an installment network also makes reaching more merchants a lot simpler. This value proposition is aligned with our commitment to provide customer-centric solutions and BetterBanking experiences,”  said Maki Tingson, executive vice president and retail banking head at Security Bank.

Aside from Security Bank,  six other Philippine banks whose cardholders would be enrolled in the program include Asia United Bank, China Bank, state-run Land Bank of the Philippines, Ty-led Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co, Philippine National Bank of tobacco and airline magnate Lucio Tan as well as Yuchengco-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.

Consumers can  access the program at over 20 merchant locations including selected Mandaue Foam, iSwitch, Autohub and CYA outlets (exclusive distributor of quality home appliance brands like Ariston, Fabriano, Indesit, Mabe, Blueair and others).

The Mastercard Installments with Pine Labs program is payment network agnostic. This means consumers can pay in interest-free monthly installments with any credit card at establishments where they see the Pay Later identifier, as long as their issuing bank is enrolled. In the future, consumers will also be able to pay in installments with their debit cards and even directly from their bank account through their mobile banking app.

This installment program supports Philippines’ drive towards a cash-lite and eventually cashless society. In addition, it also provides consumers with greater control to manage their finances as they can split large purchases into interest-free monthly installments.

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry, while Pine Labs is a leading merchant commerce platform serving prominent large, mid-sized and small merchants across India and Southeast Asia.

Under its Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas  aims to shift 50 percent of total retail transactions to electronic channels as well as increase the number of Filipino adults to 70 percent by 2023.