BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas will launch next month the PESO Net, the first clearing house under the National Retail Payment System, as part of an effort to establish a safe, efficient and reliable payment framework in the country.
“We earlier said the launch will be later this year. What we hope to launch in November is the first clearing house under the NRPS framework. There are several clearing houses but the priority one is the PESO Net,” Bangko Sentral Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. told reporters at the sidelines of an event in Manila.
“It is a batch electronic fund transfer. What it will do, is it will enable the transfer of value from any account to any account. The account can be a bank account or an electronic wallet account provided by a non-bank financial institution,” he said.
Espenilla said the launching event would be a big development because it would make it easier to move payments across the country and potentially replace check payments.
Industry players earlier committed to form within 2017 two priority automated clearing houses—the batch electronic fund transfer credit called PESO Net and the real-time InstaPay. Instapay would be useful for e-commerce payments in which people can just use a card or phone in paying any transaction.
Despite the bright outlook for electronic payments system in the country, Espenilla conceded the main challenge for the system was getting the players to “cooperate.”
“The NRPS is all about creating the framework for cooperation and sharing of services so that you will allow payment to move from one entity to another. Remember, banks and non-banks are natural competitors, they want to keep their customers to themselves. But here, we explain to them that it is everyone’s goal to allow free movement of money across the system… ,” he said.
Earlier, Espenilla said the full implementation of NRPS in the country would boost the gross domestic product growth.
He said the system, with a faster payment turnover, could lead to higher economic activities. Countries with high level of e-payment were found to have a higher level of per capita income.