Easing of digital payment rules to boost e-commerce

Digital commerce in the country is seen to get a big boost after the central bank released the first set of rules that would make it easier for banks and other parties to register as electronic payment operators.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Wednesday that firms covered by the new National Payment Systems Act (NPSA)—whether financial institutions or nonbank entities, like merchants—would have “streamlined” documentary requirements “to promote efficiency and ease of doing business.”

The new rules were contained in a draft circular providing for the implementing rules and regulations of the NPSA, which aimed to promote the maintenance of a safe, efficient, and reliable payment system.

“As the first comprehensive legal and regulatory framework governing the payment systems in the Philippines, the NPSA can well support the twin objectives of maintaining a payment system that is necessary to control systemic risk and providing an environment conducive to the sustainable growth of the economy,” the BSP said in a statement.

“Through a safe, efficient and reliable payment system through which funds are transferred among banks and other institutions to discharge payment obligations arising from economic and financial transactions across the entire economy, the cost of exchanging goods and services is reduced,” it added.

It is, likewise, an essential tool for the effective implementation of monetary policy and the smooth functioning of money and capital markets.

Since the use of payment systems is not limited to banks and nonbank financial institutions, the scope of the regulatory powers of the BSP was also expanded under the NPSA to cover nonfinancial institutions.

The draft circular is part of the first phase of the implementation of the NPSA, which prioritizes the creation of a baseline inventory of all operators of payment systems. —DAXIM L. LUCAS