ADVERTISEMENT
BSP says four applicants have filed to operate as digital banks
By JON VIKTOR D. CABUENAS,GMA NewsThe Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Thursday said it has received four applications for a digital banking license, with the new players expected to start operations next year.
In a virtual briefing, BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno said two of the applications are from new players, and two are from incumbent banks applying to convert their existing license from a thrift bank to a digital bank.
Diokno did not identify the banks except for the Overseas Filipino Bank (OFBank)
which falls under the incumbent bank category and received its license on March 25."The timeframe from application to commence their operations under a digital bank license depends on their readiness and full compliance with existing (regulations)," said Diokno.
For the incumbent players, operations are expected within the second half of the year, while the new players are likely to start mid-2022.
According to Diokno, the central bank will look at the first five digital banks first before it will open up for more players.
"We want to look at experience first with five digital banks. I think what we want to do is maybe learning to walk first before running, so we want to get as much experience as possible with digital banking before we can consider more players," he explained.
To recall, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) late last year approved the recognition of digital banks as a new category separate and distinct from existing bank classifications.
ADVERTISEMENT
Digital banks are defined as those that offer financial products and services that are processed end-to-end through a digital platform and/or electronic channels with no physical branches.
In the same briefing, Diokno said fund transfers continued to surge in March versus the same month last year or since the COVID-19 pandemic's outbreak.
PESONet transfers reached P39 million, thrice the year-ago figure while InstaPay fund transfers were recorded at P552.3 billion or four times the volume last year.
"We are continuously building capacities for digitalization. The BSP remains committed to ensuring that every Juan and Maria benefits from an increasingly digital economy, and that no one is left behind as we journey towards a cash-lite society," said Diokno.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) launched InstaPay in April 2018, an electronic fund transfer (EFT) payment system that enables individuals to wire funds across banks in real-time.
Meanwhile, PESONet was launched in 2017, enabling the government, businesses, and individuals to initiate electronic fund transfers and recurring payments in financial institutions supervised by the central bank within the same banking day.—AOL, GMA News