MANILA, Philippines — The digitalization of payments remains to be a key initiative of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). As stated in the BSP Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap for 2020-2023, their thrust is to promote financial inclusion and digitalization of payments with each enabling the other.
This initiative is supported by the country’s largest foreign bank, which held a virtual event entitled "Innovations in Philippine Payments Systems: Vision from the BSP and Solutions from Citi," attended by around 250 clients, representing more than 70 Philippine corporates.
The webinar was organized by Citi Philippines Treasury and Trade Solutions, with the goal of helping clients understand recent developments in the payment landscape of the country.
The keynote speaker for the event was Deputy Governor Mamerto Tangonan who heads BSP’s Payments and Currency Management Sector. He shared the motives behind the central bank’s agenda on digital payment transformation which includes cost savings, an increase in economic activity, market inclusion and expansion and enhanced risk management.
The BSP envisions creating a more vibrant and inclusive digital financial ecosystem by 2023 with the target to digitize 50% of the total retail payment volumes and to have 70% of the Filipino adults be financially included.
BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto thanked the private sector for their partnership and support of the BSP’s digitalization agenda, “In collaboration with key stakeholders, including the private sector, we can build inclusive pathways to establish a safe, efficient, competitive and inclusive digital finance ecosystem as we move towards a sustainable recovery in the New Normal.”
The recently launched PesoNet Multi Batch System was also highlighted in the forum. This is the new feature of PesoNet that allows payment instructions to be processed twice a day, allowing beneficiaries to receive payments earlier in the day and the usual end-of-day payments. This feature brings benefits to allowing faster and easier payment transfers.
For corporates, this helps businesses generate more sales as buyers can update their credit limits and gain access to more goods. This is one of the initiatives under the digital payment streams that serve to catalyze broader adoption of digital payments among consumers and corporates.
“A critical factor that will help the country’s digital transformation journey is the pace at which financial institutions can bring about business model changes,” Citi Philippine CEO Aftab Ahmed said.
“At Citi, our clients are also adopting new business models and we are committed to leveraging our digital capabilities to enable and support these changes. In payments, we are focused on harnessing big data, deploying APIs, and improving our processing speeds to make digital payments. We continue to enhance our mobile platforms for greater accessibility while more broadly using technology to make progress on the financial inclusion front,” he added.
Using a host of seamless integration technologies including APIs, Citi’s payment solutions offer clients leading real-time capabilities that enable digital commerce. Leveraging emerging technologies including Machine Learning, the bank’s Citi Payment Outlier Detection tool ensures security in payments as it detects outlier transactions before they are processed.
These solutions are available through CitiDirect BE®,Citi’s award-winning electronic banking channel for corporate and institutional clients.
In digital collections, Citi introduced a solution to enable payment identification, making it simpler for merchants/sellers to receive collections from their customers via PesoNet. Through this capability, details of respective payers are immediately reflected to the merchant/seller, enabling streamlined reconciliation.
Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions Director and Country Head Arlene Nethercott reiterated the importance of the digitalization of payments to Citi and its clients.
“The advent of the National Retail Payment System has empowered the industry to co-create on defining the Future of Payments in the country. Citi represents the needs of its client base to industry roundtables and works with industry movers in creating solutions that can support further digitization of payments and help bring economic progress," she said.
For more information, visit the website at www.citigroup.com, and check out their social media on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn.