The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has issued guidelines on the settlement of electronic payments under the National Retail Payment System framework.
BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno said over the weekend the policy retained current provisions applicable to instant retail payments while incorporating new provisions relevant to batch settlement of e-payments.
“This new set of guidelines is expected to strengthen the credit and settlement risk management for batch settlement of electronic payments,” he said.
The settlement guidelines provide the responsibilities and minimum requirements to be adhered to by BSP-supervised financial institutions participating in the automated clearing houses established under the NRPS, namely InstaPay and PESONet, as well as the respective clearing switch operators of the automated clearing houses.
Key provisions include requiring clearing participants to maintain a separate demand deposit account per settlement mechanism type.
The guidelines also stipulate that clearing switch operators implementing batch settlement of e-payments shall enable clearing participants to effectively monitor the sufficiency of their respective demand deposit account balances for every settlement cycle.
The settlement guidelines are issued to support the implementation of the PESONet Multiple Batch Settlement.
“This latest digital payments initiative increases the frequency of PESONet batch settlement to two cycles in a banking day, thereby allowing faster clearing and settlement of both personal and business transactions,” Diokno said.
He said the issuance of the guidelines governing the different settlement mechanisms under the NRPS Framework is crucial in the proper implementation of Republic Act 11127, or the National Payment Systems Act, which mandates the BSP to ensure that payment systems are operated in a safe, efficient, and reliable manner.
PESONet is an electronic fund transfer scheme under the National Retail Payment System which can be considered as an electronic alternative to the check system. It is ideal for high-value business transactions beyond P50,000 and is credited to the receiver by the end of a banking day.
InstaPay is its retail counterpart which allows for real-time transfer of funds up to P50,000, making it ideal for e-commerce as well as urgent payment needs.
Diokno is expecting that 50 percent of payments will be done online by 2023.
In 2020, digital payments made up 20.1 percent of all transaction in terms of volume, a significant improvement from the 10 percent in 2018 and one percent in 2013.
BSP said the spike in the country’s online transactions was driven by payment-to-merchant and person-to-person use cases, especially during the pandemic.