Almost a third of retail payments now done digitally

The government is ever closer to meeting its objective of having at least half of retail transactions be paid through digital means, as the share of digital payments rose to 30.3 percent of total retail payments at the end of 2021, according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Felipe Medalla.

This was an improvement of about 50 percent from a share of 20.1 percent in 2020, based on the BSP’s latest e-payments data.

Medalla said in a statement that, in terms of value, digital payments accounted for 44.1 percent of total retail payments in 2021, up from the 26.8 percent recorded a year earlier.

The BSP chief said the key contributors to the growth of digital payments were merchant payments and peer-to-peer (P2P) remittances as well as business payments of salaries and wages to employees

All of these are high-frequency and low value retail transactions, Medalla added.

Comparing the same two years, the volume of merchant payments increased by 43.8 percent, while P2P remittances revved up by 268.6 percent.

At the same time, business payments of salaries and wages surged by 170.2 percent.

Medalla said this indicated that, for salary disbursements, businesses are transitioning from cash to digital channels, such as electronic fund transfers to bank or e-money accounts.

—Ronnel W. Domingo