AllBank is joining the move to cash-light environment through the use of QR or quick response code to transfer money between individuals and merchants in a fast, efficient and convenient manner electronically.
The rapid shift to digital payments due to the pandemic provided a momentum for AllBank to modernize payment mechanisms.
The digital payment system has a huge potential and is seen to greatly benefit merchants such as AllDay Supermarket.
"This COVID-19 pandemic has caught all of us by surprise and very much accelerated the pace of digital transformation in our country. Most, if not all, companies have had to cope with the pandemic by changing the way they do things—from our normal manual or face-to-face transactions to digital ones," AllDay director Manuel Paolo Villar said in his message during the launch of the national QR code, led by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Philippine Payments Management Inc. and Bancnet last week.
"These all happened in 2020 and are still continuing in 2021. The use of e-wallets and other payment platforms have become widely-used," he said.
"For merchants like AllDay Supermarket, this is a welcome development as we will be able to ensure that our customers have a safe, secure, reliable and efficient channel to make their payments," he said.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is pilot-testing the P2M payment schemes as part of the regulator's "Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap 2020-2023" to pave the way for financial inclusion and digitalization of payments.
Full implementation of the P2M scheme is slated in the third quarter, the BSP said.
Villar said he was glad the regulator took the initiative to adopt a national QR code—called QR Ph—as this would encourage more people to shift to more secure, simple and seamless electronic transactions on the back of a surge of instant payments last year by more than 5,000 percent.
AllBank, formerly known as Optimum Development Bank, is the first thrift bank to participate in the BSP's pilot P2M program.
