The Bangko Sentral Pilipines (BSP) is proposing a set of guidelines in the settlement of disputes involving electronic fund transfers (EFTs) with the increased adoption of digital or e-payments in the country.
In a draft circular, the regulation will cover EFTs under the National Retail Payment System (NRPS) Framework and will apply to all domestic peso-denominated payments of goods and services, domestic remittances or fund transfers.
The guidelines will include reconciliation and dispute handling mechanisms for “issues encountered on settlement and crediting” of EFTs under NRPS.
“The use of electronic payment transactions continues to expand and is expected to steadily grow as part of the ‘New Economy’ environment,” according to BSP Governor Felipe M. Medalla in the proposed circular.
Medalla said BSP needs to ensure that all BSP supervised institutions that offer EFT services through their participation in the automated clearing houses (ACH) PESONet and InstaPay will “provide appropriate and timely consumer recourse mechanisms on EFT issues lodged by their clients.”
“Defined industry-wide actions and expectations from ACH participants on the timely resolution of customer concerns relating to electronic payments build trust and confidence in the use of digital payments,” he said.
The BSP circulated the draft circular to banks and non-banks this week. It has a feedback due date of June 28.
The draft circular had some details on minimum requirements for clearing switch operators, transactions and return of funds, as well as collection and refund of transaction fees.
It also contained guidelines on unauthorized or erroneous transactions, disruptions of financial services and operations and consumer protection. There were also instructions on monitoring and reporting, surveillance and examination and supervisory enforcement actions.
In January 2022, the BSP approved regulations covering e-payments of banks and non-banks to strengthen the credit and settlement risk management.
BSP approved Circular No. 1135 which identified the responsibilities and minimum requirements of ACH participants such as the requirement for clearing participants to maintain a separate demand deposit account (DDA) per ACH, or one DDA for InstaPay and another DDA for PESONet.
The circular has also required the clearing switch operators of ACHs to provide clearing participants with access to timely data allowing them to efficiently monitor their DDA balances against their net clearing obligations.
The BSP has a goal of shifting 50 percent of all payment transactions in digital form by end-2023, based on the BSP Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap.
BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto E. Tangonan has said that preliminary numbers showed that in 2022, e-payment transactions have exceeded the 2021 migration, which was 30.3 percent of all payments in digital form.
Tangonan said they will update the 2022 data next month.
The 30.3 percent e-payments as of end-2021 in terms of volume is higher compared to 20.1 percent in 2020. The lockdowns and mobility restrictions were the trigger to convince millions of Filipinos to switch to digital payments or online transactions.