BSP conducts nationwide survey on consumer payments landscape

The central bank is conducting its first nationwide survey of the consumer payments landscape in the country as part of its thrust to get more Filipinos to transact through digital channels and also to get more citizens to open financial transaction accounts.

In a statement, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said its first ever Consumer Payments Survey is being conducted nationwide in the current fourth quarter of 2020 in an effort to measure the actual use of digital payments by individual consumers age 15 years old and above.

For this, the regulator engaged the services of Kantar Philippines Inc., an independent market research firm, to conduct the survey operations.

“We strongly encourage the selected individuals to participate in the Consumer Payments Survey,” the central bank said in a statement. “The results of the [survey] will guide the BSP in its various efforts to increase the use of digital payments to at least 50 percent of retail payments and enable at least 70 percent of Filipinos to own financial accounts by 2023.”

It explained that all necessary precautions would be taken to continuously safeguard the privacy of the survey data and that all information collected would be treated with the strictest confidentiality and used exclusively for policy-formulation purposes.

“Equally important, the survey will be conducted with utmost adherence to established health protocols,” it said. “Visits by Kantar researchers to selected households around the country will also be coordinated with local government authorities to ensure safety.”

Earlier this year, the Philippine Statistics Authority approved the conduct of this survey, which would also collect information on the awareness, ownership and usage of the different payment instruments by Filipino consumers.

Among the payment instruments covered are cash, checks, bank accounts and automated teller machine cards, debit cards, credit cards, prepaid cards and mobile money.

Specifically, the survey aims to identify factors that influence the consumer’s preference for payment instruments/methods; set the baseline for tracking the impact of the National Retail Payment System framework, particularly the volume and value of the consumer’s retail payments, and provide inputs for policy formulation in the area of digital payments.

Major data items to be collected from the survey are sociodemographic characteristics of households and its members; usage, ownership and preferences in payment instruments; volume and value of transactions using various types of payment instruments; awareness, usage and future use of interbank facilities; and awareness, ownership, usage and preferences with regard to virtual currencies.

Some 16,000 individuals nationwide will be surveyed. INQ