Ilocanos are urged by the BSP to switch to digital payments

DT | Ilocanos are urged by the BSP to switch to digital payments | LAOAG CITY – The Philippines’ central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), told all Ilocanos on Tuesday to switch to digital payments for better and more convenient banking services.

In an interview at a Kapihan media forum at the BSP Batac Branch on Tuesday, Cristamarie Tabilas-Abiva, who is the deputy head of the BSP Regional Operations Sub-sector in Ilocos, said that people need to know more about how digital payments work.

“The main reason people are hesitant to use digital payments is because of scams, but the risk can be avoided or reduced by being aware of the risks,” she said, adding that making sure digital financial transactions are safe is everyone’s job.

This year, the BSP wants to digitise at least half of all retail payments and get 70% of all adult Filipinos involved in the banking system.

The BSP gave these tips to make sure digital security: don’t open weird or suspicious messages, make a strong password and make sure no one else knows it, use two-step verification, look over your transaction history and report any that seem odd, and turn on alert notifications.

The head of the BSP Payments Policy and Development Department, Maureen Franco, said that the share of digital payments in the country’s total payment volume is going up. It went from 10% in 2018 to 14% in 2019, then to 20% in 2020, 30% in 2021, and 42.1% in 2022.

In 2019, there were 20.9 million e-wallet accounts among Filipinos. In 2021, there were 42.9 million accounts, which is a 56% rise. Most of these accounts were used to pay for things with mobile devices.

The heads of the BSP said again that digital payments are not the way of the future, but the way of the present.

“This is the way things are going right now, so let’s think about how we can make things better. “Using digital payments is safe,” Noel Neil Malimban, regional head of the BSP North Luzon Regional Office, said in his message during the Kapihan.

The BSP officials said that digital payment also helps micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) because it gives them a chance to better manage their financial transactions, set up a formal financial system, improve their financial profile, and get a better credit rating.(via PNA)