New govt portal allows electronic payments

MANILA, Philippines - A newly-launched Philippine portal will soon give Filipinos a faster and more efficient way to download government documents and pay for services through the internet. The P136-millon IT project, dubbed e-Services Portal or eSerbisyo, has a payment gateway called e-Bayad designed to accept debit and credit card transactions in real-time. Although the portal also allows payment via text messaging, the option is currently limited to mobile operator Globe Telecom. A statement released by its proponent said the portal “allows access to government services, such as applying for benefits, requesting civil registry documents, renewing passports and licenses, securing police clearances, and accessing government-specific information." Financed by the e-Government Fund and initiated by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) and the National Computer Center (NCC), the portal is being touted as the “single door" Web-based gateway that will facilitate payments of citizens to government agencies. CICT commissioner and NCC director-general Tim Diaz de Rivera and Landbank president and chief executive officer Gilda E. Pico attended the launch at the CICT-NCC building last March 28. Government-owned Landbank will be handling the settlement function of the portal. A key component of the project, the e-Payment Gateway or eBayad, was launched late year and cost P85.5 million to construct. According to Diaz de Rivera, it would be Landbank who will determine which fund will go to which agency. Any government agency which wants to make use of the portal should have an account with the bank. For the e-Serbisyo portal, Diaz de Rivera said government had a budget of P50 million for hardware, software, and services. Winning bidder TIM (Total Information Management) undertook the project for P46 million. Diaz de Rivera said a P15 transaction fee will be charged when using the e-payment gateway in the portal. This amount, he said, is still cheaper compared to the cost, let alone the time, a person would spend if he or she would physically go to a government office to make a payment. Besides Landbank, Globe, and TIM, other companies involved in the project included BancNet, Data Center Inc. and Fujitsu Philippines. - GMANews.TV