MACTAN Island, Cebu–Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas expects to finalize the framework for the single electronic money platform by 2016 to promote cashless transactions, a top official said Thursday.
Bangko Sentral Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr said the framework for the single e-payment platform or the National Retail Payment System would be made available as early as next year.
“So there is a specific work program that’s been hammered out to bring them to that point as early as next year,” Espenilla said at the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation finance ministers’ meeting.
The single e-payment platform aims to minimize and eventually eliminate the use of physical cash in daily transactions.
Espenilla said the NRPS was now being discussed by different stakeholders such as telecommunication companies and banks.
He said the rules and regulations for the single e-payment platform was now being drafted.
“Governance is very important in the payment system because it basically determines the rights and privileges of all the players so that they can interact with one another, defining clearly the areas where they should cooperate but it is also defining the areas where they can compete because they are cooperators as well as competitors. So that’s the tricky part of it,” he said.
Data from Bangko Sentral showed registered e-money accounts surged 34 percent to 26.7 million in 2013 from the 2010 level of 19.9 million.
The e-payment system is a joint project of Bangko Sentral, Bankers Association of the Philippines and the US Agency for International Development.
USAID said in a 2013 report that switching to cashless modes of payment could bring down transaction costs by as much as 90 percent in the Philippines.
E-money is defined by Bangko Sentral as monetary value electronically stored in convenient payment instruments that consumers can use to buy or pay for goods and services, to transfer or remit funds or to withdraw funds.
E-money is not considered a deposit and hence, not insured with the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.