As the year 2023 closes, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said it has successfully enabled 16 cities to implement its Paleng-QR PH Plus that promotes the digitalization of payment transactions in public markets, public utility vehicles (PUVs) and business establishments.
The latest city to be added is the City of Alaminos in Pangasinan this month, following the most recent addition as well of IloIlo City in November.
The program was launched at Alaminos City’s SUKI Market last Dec. 6 while IloIlo City welcomed it on Nov. 23 at the IloIlo Terminal Market.
Paleng-QR PH Plus is q joint initiative of the BSP and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG). The program encourages the use of Quick Response (QR) Ph, the national standard for QR code technology that provides a safe, convenient, and efficient way of making and receiving payments for merchants and customers.
The BSP in a statement said some 700 market vendors and over 3,600 tricycle drivers have already joined the Paleng-QR Ph Plus program in Alaminos City. “With the issuance of an ordinance encouraging the use of digital payments, more vendors and PUV drivers in Alaminos are expected to get onboarded in the program,” it said.
The nationwide program supports the BSP’s thrust to convert half of the total volume of retail payments in the country into digital form and to onboard 70 percent of Filipinos to the formal financial system by this year under the BSP’s Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap 2020-2023, said the BSP.
As such, Paleng-QR Ph Plus is one of the priority programs under the BSP’s National Strategy for Financial Inclusion 2022-2028, the guiding framework for all stakeholders working together to accelerate financial inclusion in the country.
Last month, the BSP also rolled out the program in Calamba City.
According to BSP Deputy Governor Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, “with digital transaction accounts, users can track their finances, reduce extra spending, and budget more effectively. Plus, these accounts open the door to other financial tools like insurance, investments, and savings.”
Calamba City is the first local government unit in Laguna to officially launch the Paleng-QR Ph Plus program.
Besides Alaminos City, IloIlo City and Calamba City, other cities with Paleng-QR PH Plus are Baguio, Davao, Tagbilaran, Naga, Lapu-Lapu, Pasig, Bacolod, Victorias, Mandaue, Ozamiz, Cotabato, and the towns of Camiling in Tarlac and Carmona in Cavite.
Last May, the BSP signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Department of Agriculture-Regional Field Office-Cordillera Administrative Region to onboard farmers and other agricultural players to the Paleng-QR Ph.
The BSP said the MOA includes financial education programs on the effective use of digital payments in business, financial services for micro and small enterprises, and consumer protection.
The MOA expands the scope of Paleng-QR Ph participants from Baguio City’s public market vendors, public transport drivers, and other merchants who joined the program in August last year, to now include the region’s agricultural supply chain players
In 2022, to further increase the use of e-payments, the BSP launched the QR Ph person-to-merchant (P2M) payment facility which was cost-effective since it does not require expensive point of sale or data capture terminals.
Basically, the QR Ph P2M is an interoperable digital payments between customers and merchants even if they maintain accounts with different financial service providers. It may also be used for bills payment in the future.
To spread QR Ph use across the country, the BSP introduced the Paleng-QR Ph Plus program in mid-2022 with the DILG to help local government units bring QR Ph to public markets and transport hubs such as for tricycles.