The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has reminded all its supervised financial institutions (BSFIs) to establish effective mechanisms to inform the public about e-payments and to handle PESONet and InstaPay consumer complaints in a timely manner.
BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto E. Tangonan of the BSP payments and currency management sector said banks and non-banks should ensure that they have all types of accessible channels for a timely and adequate response for all e-payment issues.
A new memo (BSP Memorandum No. 029) which Tangonan signed on Monday, June 6, issued the guidelines for BSFIs on the handling of PESONet and InstaPay complaints that will be submitted to the BSP through the Philippine Payments Management Inc. (PPMl), which is the accredited payment system management body for retail payments.
Tangonan said the PPMI will monitor that its BSFI members are compliant with the National Retail Payment System framework as well as following the strict guidelines under the BSP's Financial Consumer Protection framework.
Based on the memo, BSFIs are now required to submit the status of their compliance to the PPMI. The PPMI will then report this to the BSP Payment System Oversight Department on a semestral basis. The PPMI is BSP’s partner for its three-year Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap, an industry-led self-governing body.
The BSP official is reminding banks and non-banks to first of all, ensure that all of its frontline personnel at their head office, branches, branch-lite units, and other available channels, should “possess adequate, accurate and relevant information about PESONet and InstaPay to address consumer concerns and fund transfer issues, and to properly advise on redress mechanism and turn-around time for resolution of issues.”
Tangonan said it is basic, under the BSP’s pro-consumer circulars, that BSFIs post “pertinent” information on the “redress mechanism” of complaints concerning PESONet and InstaPay. They should also make sure that up-to-date contact information for consumer concerns on its website and official social media pages are also posted.
Tangonan also said BSFIs should ensure access “to a wide range of accessible contact channels for communication of consumer concerns, including but not limited to customer service hotlines, email, chatbot, and make available timely and adequate response to concerns sent via said channels.”
There are 94 BSFIs participating in PESONet and 66 in InstaPay as of end-April this year.
Last year, PESONet volume grew by 26 percent year-on-year to seven million transactions while the peso value also increased by 37 percent year-on-year to P502 billion.
InstaPay transactions in 2021 also rose by 47 percent year-on-year to 45 million while peso value also went up by 64 percent year-on-year to P289 billion in 2021.
The increased usage of digital payments was largely driven by high-frequency, low value retail transactions such as person-to-merchant or P2M payments and person-to-person or P2P payments such as electronic fund transfers.
As of end-April this year, there are 28 BSFI participants in P2P and 17 in P2M.
Based on BSP data, QR Ph P2P transactions are growing by an average of 152 percent on a quarterly basis in terms of volume. Value-wise, it is growing by an average of 255 percent per quarter. After P2P facility, the BSP launched QR Ph P2M via InstaPay last year for merchants and businesses.
For this year, the BSP will launch three more e-payment streams which are Bills Payment, Request-to-Pay and Direct Debit.
The interoperable Bills Payment and Request-to-Pay facilities will run through InstaPay while the Direct Debit is via PESONet.