Nope, Virginia, ‘am not talking about the union of individuals here.
But rather the impending marriage of Philippine Clearing House Corp. (PCHC) and electronic payment network BancNet, whose parents have given their respective approval nearly four months back.

With the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) as the cupid, PCHC shareholders and 23 equity member-banks of BancNet, among them BDO Universal Bank, East West Bank, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation and Bank of the Philippine Islands, sanctioned the union.

As journo that has covered a number of mergers and acquisitions, including that of BancNet-Megalink-ExpressNet, I fully subscribed to the vision of BAP, the matchmaker, that the marriage of PCHC and BancNet is for the convenience and comfort of the general banking public.

Allow me to walk you through what is PCHC, the concept of a clearing switch operator (CSO), InstaPay and PESONet.  CSO may be relatively unfamiliar to some, but it is the fundamental foundation in sending/remitting money to other people.

Simply because a CSO manages the “clearing switch” that provides instructions for one bank to send money to another bank, thereby giving us the convenience of sending and receiving money at the stroke of our fingers.
And just to be clear, InstaPay and PESONet are unique and distinct from each other. InstaPay is for those looking for convenience, given it is available 24/7. It’s more for the general banking public with small amounts of remittances.
PESONet, on the other hand, is designed for those who are frequently involved in large transactions. This CSO has no transaction limits. Although, for companies that offer payment services, they have the choice - either they offer both InstaPay and PESONet for consumers to use or only one of them.

And because of the present dynamic environment, largely due to technological advancements, the payments space has seen, if not suffered a lot of disruption. This has led to increased competition among market participants, which include banks and fintech companies.

Heightened competition gave birth to new products for consumers – e-wallets offering both the usage of InstaPay and PESONet – as well as changes in pricing among market participants.

Though, on the flip side, these technological advancements have also led to an increase in sophistication in terms of how cybercrime is being perpetrated against the public.

All these considered, I firmly believe that merger to PCHC and BancNet is advantageous. Housing InstaPay and PESONet under one entity allows banks to manage the payments system in a more efficient manner and more importantly fortify cybersecurity measures.

Et tu, Philippine Competition Commission? 

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