Moving to continuously push the country’s digital transformation, Yuchengco-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) showed its utmost support to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas‘ (BSP) full rollout of the Person-to-Merchant (P2M) option for the national quick response standard, QR Ph.
During a virtual event held this October, BSP and the payments industry led by the Philippine Payments Management, Inc. (PMMI) launched QR Ph P2M, effectively expanding the QR Ph P2M use case to include more banks and electronic money issuers (EMI).
As highlighted by the BSP, QR Ph P2M can benefit both customers and merchants by providing a faster, easier, and cheaper payment option that is secure, reliable, and convenient. With the rollout of QR Ph P2M, a wider consumer base is set to benefit from it, including MSMEs that makeup over 98% of the registered businesses in the Philippines.
“Because of its low cost and ease of use, QR Ph P2M can enable small unbanked vendors, such as sari-sari store owners and tricycle drivers, to participate in the digital payments ecosystem and allow them to build financial profiles which may eventually facilitate their access to other financial products and services that can help them grow and enhance the resiliency of their businesses,” according to BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno.
QR Ph P2M functions much like the QR Ph Person-to-Person (P2P) in that it uses a quick response code (QR Code), which is a two-dimensional image-based bar code that holds the user’s account information, in transmitting a person’s payment details to facilitate a transaction. Users only need to scan the QR code using their mobile banking or e-wallet app to push through with a transaction, without having to type in their details.
The main difference is that with P2M, the payment goes from the customer to the merchant, wherein the merchant is on the receiving end of the transaction. With this, customers can avail of a contactless payment option without the fees incurred from transferring money to a merchant’s account.
This also improves the speed and accuracy of the transaction, without the risk of filling out the payment options menu with the wrong details, as the information is already stored in the QR code that the user will scan. Meanwhile, merchants can use P2M as a payment option to charge exact amounts from customers through a cardless transaction, without the need for point-of-sale terminals.
QR Ph P2M provides an interoperable payment solution using InstaPay, the country’s 24/7 fast payment system that operates across different participating payment service providers.
RCBC Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation and Inclusion Officer Lito Villanueva sees this as another milestone that helps fill the gap and promote interoperability in the digital payments landscape in the country. This is also in line with the BSP’s twin goals of digital acceleration and financial inclusion, which RCBC has also adopted, especially amid post-pandemic recovery efforts.
“The full implementation of QR Ph P2M is instrumental in helping industries recover from the pandemic disruption, helping us rebuild the economy. The convenience that QR Ph P2M offers can also encourage more people to get into digital banking, which will take us a step closer to becoming a more inclusive, cash-lite society,” said Villanueva.
RCBC is one of the first participating banks and electronic money issuers during the preliminary rollout of QR Ph P2M. Using the RCBC Mobile app’s QR function in a demonstration held in early October, Gov. Diokno was able to test the efficiency of the new QR Ph P2M use case.
The pilot P2P rollout held last April, on the other hand, was meant to promote public awareness on how to use QR Ph and refine the system.