Paymaya Philippines Inc. said digital payments became the preferred mode of settlement of Filipinos shopping online last year and overtook cash transactions.
PayMaya founder and chief executive Orlando Vea said cashless modes of payment”•which include e-Wallets such as PayMaya, cards and bank transfers”•most likely reached a tipping point in 2020 when over 50 percent of online shopping transaction value in the country were paid through cashless means, based on data from Google, Temasek, Bain & Company, Euromonitor and PayMaya.
“From Cash On Delivery, today COD now means Cashless Orders and Delivery. In 2020 alone, we processed over P95 billion worth of online shopping transactions across all of our platforms, which only shows that consumer preference for cashless payments and online shopping is overwhelmingly present,” Vea said.
Vea said because of this development, the Philippines was on the cusp of an online shopping explosion as financial technology providers, digital players, businesses and the government accelerated the pivot to digital, bolstered by the launch of the update e-Commerce Philippines Roadmap 2022 by the Department of Trade and Industry on Friday.
With the updated e-Commerce roadmap for 2022, the DTI is targeting to increase e-commerce merchants to one million from a base of 500,000 and hike e-commerce contribution to Philippine economy to 5.5 percent from 3.4 percent last year.
“As we recharge our economy and build back better in the post-pandemic era, let us create a ‘better normal’ by taking advantage of the benefits of e-commerce. And as we aim for fast, convenient and easy commerce in a digital world, let us remember that more e-commerce means more jobs and employment generated for our countrymen,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said during the launch of the updated e-commerce roadmap.
Vea said the conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the push for e-commerce, but the support of players in the entire ecosystem would turbo-charge its growth all the way to 2022.
“With the guidance of DTI and the push to make e-commerce easy for all players involved, we are seeing online shopping and cashless payments boom in the country like never before,” Vea said.
“Consumers are now used to ordering online or via their phones and paying via cashless, and many businesses have accelerated their migration to digital, so there’s no turning back now when it comes to digital payments and e-Commerce in the Philippines,” he said.
PayMaya is an end-to-end digital payment ecosystem enabler in the Philippines with platforms and services that cut across consumers, merchants, communities and government.
PayMaya saw marked increase in the number of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises utilizing its cashless payments solutions as many of them migrated or began their operations online”•with DTI recording as many as 900,000 newly registered business for the entire 2020.
Through its app and wallet, PayMaya provides over 28 million Filipinos with access to financial services. Customers can conveniently pay, add money, cash out or remit through its over 200,000 digital touch points nationwide, the widest network in the country.
