Retail transactions completed in the digital sphere is on track towards the yearend target of 50 percent having already averaged 42.1 percent a month in 2022, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
This compares with retail digital transactions of only 30.3 percent in 2021.
The outcome has boosted confidence among policymakers that retail payments happen at the digital level as envisioned in 2013 when e-money transactions averaged only one percent of all retail payments.
“The latest results show that we are steering in the right direction as we move closer to our goal of converting at least half of total retail payments volume into digital form by the end of 2023 under the BSP Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap,” said BSP Governor Felipe M. Medalla.
According to Medalla, the major contributors to the increase in digital transactions were merchant payments, person-to-person (P2P) transfers and payment of salaries and wages.
“Merchant payments and P2P transfers were further digitalized by 35.6 percent and 91.2 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, it is also noteworthy that salaries and wage payments grew by 41.1 percent, from just 32.0 million transactions in 2021.
“These results are aligned with the latest BSP Financial Inclusion Survey Report, which found a significant increase in ownership of transaction accounts, majority of which are e-money accounts, and that more of these accounts are now being used for payments,” he said.
According to BSP data, the time it took for the share of digital payments as percent of retail transactions of only one percent in 2013 when the program started was awfully slow, having grown to only 10 percent by 2018.
But the following year this accelerated to 14 percent, then to 20.1 percent in 2020, 30.3 percent in 2021 and 30.3 percent last year.
“Over the last five years, the country witnessed a growth in the momentum in the use of digital payments, indicating the shifting preference of more Filipino consumers from traditional cash-based payments into digital modes of payments given their safety, speed and convenience,” the BSP said.
