PayMaya: Online shoppers favor cashless transactions

Filipinos shopping online used more digital payments than cash during the pandemic year 2020  according to e-wallet provider PayMaya which processed over P95 billion worth of transactions last year.

Cashless modes of payment--which include e-Wallets such as PayMaya, cards, and bank transfers--have most likely reached a tipping point in 2020 where over 50% of online shopping transaction value in the country are now paid via cashless, PayMaya Founder and CEO Orlando Vea revealed during the launch of the updated DTI e-Commerce roadmap for 2022.

"In 2020 alone, we processed over P95 billion worth of online shopping transactions across all of our platforms, which only shows that consumer preference for cashless payments and online shopping is overwhelmingly present," he noted.

Because of this development, he said the Philippines is on the cusp of an online shopping explosion in the next two years.

With the updated e-Commerce roadmap for 2022, the DTI is targeting to increase e-Commerce merchants to 1 million from a base of 500,000 and hike e-Commerce contribution to Philippine GDP to 5.5%, from the current rate of 3.4%.  

The conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the push for e-Commerce, but the support of players in the entire ecosystem will turbo-charge its growth all the way to 2022, according to Vea.

"We are seeing online shopping and cashless payments boom in the country like never before " he pointed out.

"Consumers are now used to ordering online or via their phones and paying via cashless, and many businesses have accelerated their migration to digital, so there’s no turning back now when it comes to digital payments and e-Commerce in the Philippines.”