Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said Friday government’s efforts to push for financial technology and digitalization even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck last year helped Filipinos during the onslaught of the global crisis.
Diokno said in his online BSP Ulat Para sa Bayan that digitalization was among a few things that helped Filipinos continue with their daily lives during the pandemic.
“It is a good thing that the country had been gradually embracing financial technology even before the pandemic hit. For me, it prepared us for the worst,” Diokno said.
Citing latest available data, Diokno said in 2020, the volume of PESONet transfers surged to 15.3 million, up by 376 percent year-on-year while the value of PESONet transactions increase by 188 percent to nearly P951.6 billion—equivalent to about 5.3 percent of the gross domestic product.
The number of payments made through InstaPay reached 86.7 million, up by 459 percent year-on-year. The transactions were valued at P463.4 billion, which was a 340-percent increase from a year ago.