An official of financial technology company Pisopay said they are ready to cooperate in any inquiry on the allegedly excessive fees collected by the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) for the release of the International Certificate of Vaccination that seafarers and overseas Filipino workers need.
In a statement, Ariel Surca, president of Pisopay, denied the BOQ got the short end of its deal with the fintech provider.
The BOQ is charging P370 for the ICV, of which P70 goes to Pisopay as “convenience fee.”
“Pisopay’s services include the development and maintenance of the entire BOQ Online Booking System, including the booking system, payment system, application processing system, digital ICV generation, ICV verification and ICV printing,” Surca said.
Surca said the bulk of the convenience fee goes to the various payment partners of Pisopay, and only a small portion of said amount ends up with the fintech company that acts as a payment gateway that aggregates various payment channels.
Compared to other payment gateway providers that charge P50 for the payment collection alone, excluding system development, Surca said Pisopay’s service is the best choice for the project.
“All our projects include system development. It’s all packaged. The P15 to P35 payment for convenience fee is for payment collection only,” he said.
As to allegations that the company was remiss in its obligations to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Surca said Pisopay has made the required filings but there were some complications with the BIR system.
“The problem is our filings were not reflected, but when we resent our copy of filings, it was all cleared. We have a tax clearance certificate which was released last July 2021,” he said.