PCAB, PayMaya partner for online payment

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB) has partnered with PayMaya Philippines Inc. for payments for online renewal of licenses.

In a statement Monday, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said a memorandum of agreement (MOA) was signed by the agency with PayMaya, Land Bank of the Philippines, and Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) to authorize the digital payments provider to be a collecting agent for the services of the Construction Industry Authority of the Philippines (CIAP), starting with the PCAB online license renewal.

PCAB is one of the implementing boards of the CIAP, which is an attached agency of the DTI.

PCAB, with assistance from the US Agency for International Development, has integrated an end-to-end digital payment system for the online license renewal facility.

With PayMaya onboard, contractors can pay within the PCAB website for license renewal using credit, debit and prepaid cards, or their PayMaya-registered mobile number.

After PayMaya collects the renewal fees from the contractors, Landbank will serve as the settlement bank and remit the payments to the BTr.

“At PayMaya, we have always been supportive of the government’s continued pursuit of providing efficient, transparent, and accessible services to the public with the help of digital payments. We are delighted to assist DTI-CIAP in their digital transformation journey, enabling them to offer much-need services to various industry stakeholders, as well as allowing Filipino contractors to transact safely and conveniently from their homes, especially in light of our current public health situation,” PayMaya founder and chief executive officer Orlando Vea said.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said PayMaya’s service is a welcome development as the government aims to improve ease in doing business.

“We are happy to continue pursuing modern services for the benefit of our industry stakeholders as we can help them reallocate their time from applying licenses and permits, to growing their businesses, thus paving more avenues for job creation,” he said.

“This initiative, and the online renewal platform system, manifest the commitment of the national government to lead the way in digital transformation and compliance with the Ease of Doing Business Law,” he added.

CIAP alternate chairman and DTI Undersecretary Ireneo Vizmonte said the MOA is in line with the aim to modernize services as part of the 30 action plans for the next 10 years for the construction industry to realize its full potential to drive economic growth and employment.

“One important action agenda is the modernization of the services across the whole organizational umbrella of the DTI-CIAP, and a large part of that is the simplification and automation of contractor’s license applications,” he said.

Since the launch of the online license renewal facility, there have been 8,950 sign ups.

As of Aug. 7, PCAB has renewed and released around 5,000 digital contractors’ licenses out of 5,593 online submissions.

For faster and more convenient transactions, DTI said more e-payment options would be integrated and made available on the portal.