MANILA - The Philippines is on track to shift half of all retail payments this year to digital from cash, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said in a report released on Sunday.
As of last year “the share in terms of volume of digital payments over total retail payments considerably grew to 42.1 percent,” the BSP.
The BSP is targeting to shift 50 percent of all retail payments from cash to digital channels in 2023, based on its Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap.
The central bank noted that in 2022, there was an increase of 611.7 million retail payments transactions from the previous year.
The share in terms of value of digital payments over total retail payments also stood at 40.1 percent amounting to $78 billion, the BSP said.
Payments made by persons to persons, had the largest share of the total retail payments volume at 68.6 percent. This was followed by payments made by businesses at 30.3 percent, then payments made by the government at 1.1 percent.
“These statistics show that we are on the right track with the country making notable strides in building an inclusive retail payment landscape,” said former BSP Governor Felipe Medalla, whose term as BSP chief ended on July 2.
Shifting to digital payments will boost financial inclusion, the BSP has said.
Digital payments saw a boom in adoption during the pandemic as people took to e-wallets and online bank transfers to pay for goods and services while under one of the world’s strictest COVID-19 lockdowns.
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