Beep card vending machines to accept new P5 coin starting March

The software of ticket vending machines usually found in Metro Rail Transit and Light Rail Transit stations is being adjusted to accept the new P5 coin released by the central bank.

The coin acceptor unit is being calibrated in Germany, said Agnes Padilla, head of marketing at AF Payments Incorporated, the company behind the contactless and reloadable smart card technology.

AF Payments will actually send new P5 coins to Buxtehude, Germany next week, and calibration will start once vendor Crane Payment Innovations—maker of products for money handling solutions—receives the coins.

“We’re expecting completion within March,” Padilla told GMA News Online.

In the meantime, commuters can exchange the new P5 coins for the old coins at MRT and LRT station tellers, she said.

TVMs dispense the beep cards for the mass rail system. Beep cards can also be used in selected bus lines, convenience stores, and at least one movie house. The cards can be reloaded in malls and pawnshops.

The New Generation Currency coin was released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in December 2017.

It features revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio on one side, as well as Tayabak—a Philippine endemic plant that climbs tall trees—the central bank logo, and “Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas” in microprint on the reverse side.

Senator Nancy Binay has called for the central bank to stop circulating the coin—at least temporarily—due to its supposedly confusing similarities with the P1 coin, but the BSP said the new P5 coin would be “increasingly accepted” by the public over time. — VDS, GMA News