BSP launches person-to-merchant QR payments

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Tuesday officially rolled out QR Ph P2M, which enables merchants to accept e-payments with ease.

According to BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno, customers who have accounts with partner banks can now make QR Ph payments in more than 30,000 locations of over 20,000 participating merchants.

The partner banks include AllBank, AUB, Cebuana Lhuillier Rural Bank, Chinabank, Land Bank of the Philippines, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., StarPay, Union Bank, and USSC Money Services.

“QR Ph P2M enables merchants such as department stores, pharmacies, supermarkets, hardware stores, and restaurants to accept e-payments with ease even in the safety of their customers’ homes,” Diokno said during the virtual launch.

“We anticipate that more payment service providers and merchants will be onboarded to the QR Ph P2M platform after today’s event,” he added.

The BSP launched the QR Ph for person-to-person payments or QR Ph P2P in November 2019, primarily catering to remittances and payments within the informal sector. It initially had six pilot participants, which then grew to 23 by end-August 2021.

Transactions have likewise surged, with the volume up nearly 13 times its level in the second quarter of 2020, and the value up by more than 45 times its level in April to June 2020.

“To complement the P2P component of the QR Ph, the QR Ph for person-to-merchant was developed and its pilot run started in April this year,” Diokno said.

The program is a joint initiative by the BSP and the Philippine Payments Management, Inc.

Diokno has long advocated for the digitization of transactions in the country, as he sees the Philippines as a coinless society by 2025 with small transactions done via QR by then.

A study commissioned by global technology firm Cisco found that the digitalization of local businesses could add as much as $28 billion to the Philippine economy by 2024.  — VBL, GMA News