E-money transactions breach P1 T mark

MANILA, Philippines — Electronic money transactions breached the P1-trillion level last year on the back of the growing number of providers as well as aggressive marketing strategies undertaken by major players, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.

Melchor Plabasan, officer-in-charge of the BSP’s Technology Risk and Innovation Supervision Department, said the value of e-money transactions, both inflows and outflows, increased by 13.2 percent to P1.09 trillion last year from P962.7 billion in 2017.

Plabasan said volume of transactions jumped by 34.4 percent to 524.33 million from 390.15 million.

“This is largely because of the increase in the number of non-bank players,” he added.

He said electronic money issues (EMIs) are undertaking aggressive marketing campaigns to ramp up additional adoption of e-money through social media.

The regulator has so far issued EMI licenses to 43 companies, consisting of 30 banks and 13 non-banks.

Plabasan said the adoption of financial technology in delivering financial products and services has prompted the BSP to grant more EMI licenses.

In 2004, the BSP first used this “test-and-learn” approach to engage e-money pioneers as G-Cash and Smart Money were allowed to pilot e-money products.

This allowed the BSP to issue the regulatory framework governing the issuance of e-money and the operations of EMIs in March 2009.

Banks continue to take advantage of opportunities from utilizing digital technology in financial transactions.