BACOLOD CITY – Residents can now experience cashless transactions in public markets following the launching of Paleng-QR Ph Plus here on Tuesday, March 14.
BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Gov. Bernadette Romulo-Puyat and Mayor Alfredo ‘Albee’ Benitez try the Paleng-QR Ph Plus in a stall at the Libertad Public Market during its official launching in Bacolod City on Tuesday, March 14. (Photo courtesy of Mayor Albee Benitez Facebook)
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Gov. Bernadette Romulo-Puyat and city officials headed by Mayor Alfredo ‘’Albee’’ Benitez led the launching at the Libertad Public Market.
According to the city government, Bacolod is the third local government unit (LGU) in the Visayas and the seventh in the Philippines to officially launch Paleng-QR Ph Plus after Baguio, Davao, Tagbilaran, Naga, Lapu-Lapu, and Pasig.
The City of Smiles is also the first in Western Visayas to introduce digital payment in a public market.
Based on the data from the city government, 1,889 or 78 percent of registered market vendors and 1,158 or 59 percent of transport drivers here are already using Paleng-QR Ph Plus as of February 2023.
The nationwide implementation of Paleng-QR Ph Plus is in line with the BSP’s Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap 2020-2023 which aims to transform half of the volume of retail payments in the country into digital form and onboard 70 percent of Filipino adults to the formal financial system by this year.
Through the program, customers can pay for goods and services by using their smartphones to scan merchants’ and Public Utility Vehicle (PUV) drivers’ QR codes.
Puyat said that cashless transactions promote sanitation, convenient, and safety from counterfeit money.
She also said that vendors and suppliers will have financial footprint in which a bank or any financial service provider can lend them money for their business with low interest rates.
It is also a gateway for other financial services like savings, insurance, and credit, she added.
With this, Bacolod is on track to becoming a digitalized and financially inclusive city, Puyat said, adding that digital payments enable people to conduct business and make purchases in the safety of the homes during the last two years of the pandemic.
Now that most of us are able to go out, customers can buy what they need from markets or anywhere without having to bring cash, she said.
Benitez highlighted the impact of technology to people. “The technology has evolved, and that evolution has transformed our cellular phones into having more services in it like the Paleng-Qr Ph Plus,” he said.
“Everything changed, and this is everybody is going,” he added.