The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has renewed its call for the use of digital cash or what it calls e-aguinaldo for this holiday season’s cash gifts.
“We encourage our countrymen to take advantage of the ease and safety provided by digital finance in sending their cash gifts during the holidays,” said the BSP on Monday, Dec. 19.
The promotion of e-aguinaldo is part of BSP’s push for the wider adoption of digital payments, financial inclusion and an efficient flow of funds.

Digital channels include interbank fund transfers through InstaPay and PESONet, electronic money issuers that are more commonly known as e-wallets, and QR Ph, which entails code scanning and offers consumers faster, easier, and cheaper payment options, said the BSP.
QR Ph is based on the Europay-Mastercard-VISA (EMV) standard, the global standard for secure payments.
The BSP also issued a statement assuring the public that there is enough supply of currency throughout the Christmas holidays.
Based on historical data, currency demand will start to rise in October until December. In demand are usually P1,000, P100, P50 and P20 banknotes. Coins such as P1 and 25-sentimos also have increased demand.
The wide use of internet banking and e-money transactions for domestic remittances, e-commerce, bills payment, and other immediate low-value payments contributed to the growth of InstaPay transactions. InstaPay is a real-time, low value electronic fund transfer facility for transactions up to P50,000 and is most useful for remittances and e-commerce.
PESONet and InstaPay are part of the BSP’s National Retail Payment System, which was launched in 2017.
As of end-2021, about 30.3 percent of all payment transactions are already in digital form. The BSP wants at least 50 percent of all payment transactions as e-payments by next year.