GCash, which has cracked down on more than 7,000 merchants linked to suspicious banking transactions since last year, is backing the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) as it pushes for stricter merchant onboarding to curb the lingering risk of payment activities tied to money laundering and terrorism financing.

GCash said in a May 13 statement that this call reflects the ewallet giant’s “zero-tolerance stance against the misuse of digital payment channels for fraud, illegal activity, and financial abuse.”

By supporting the BSP’s efforts to “strengthen consumer protection and promote safer digital payment practices,” GCash aims to preserve trust within the country's rapidly expanding interoperable payment systems.

GCash’s recent enforcement actions offer a glimpse to the scale of the challenge, revealing that since 2025, “GCash has blocked more than 7,000 merchants linked to suspected illegal online gambling, suspicious transaction activity, and potential abuse of digital payment channels.”

These actions are supported by active monitoring and fraud surveillance systems that flag and report suspicious transaction patterns and misuse activities to the BSP and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).

Miguel Geronilla, chief information security officer at GCash, noted that the threat landscape is evolving as fraudsters adapt traditional scam tactics for digital environments.

“Scammers are exploiting trust, urgency, impersonation, and social engineering tactics — not just technology,” Geronilla said, adding that as digital payments become more interconnected, “fraud risks are likewise becoming more distributed across the ecosystem.”

GCash likewise pointed out that “QR payments were originally designed for face-to-face transactions and not broader online transaction environments,” where fraud risks may involve multiple participants across interoperable payment channels.

To combat this, Geronilla called for industry-wide accountability. “We ask our merchant onboarding counterparts to ensure stricter verification to avoid QR misuse.”

Geronilla said the digital payments ecosystem can stay trusted only if all participants maintain strong compliance, monitoring, and consumer protection standards.

GCash continues to facilitate stronger coordination with regulatory bodies and law enforcement, including the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) and the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG).

“Bad actors seeking to exploit gaps in digital payment environments must be addressed swiftly through strong coordination, proactive monitoring, and effective safeguards across the ecosystem,” Geronilla said.

Further, GCash urges consumers to remain vigilant by watching for specific warning signs, such as suspicious website URLs that imitate GCash domains and a mismatch in merchant identity, especially when the name displayed is random, incomplete, or unrelated to the actual business. (Derco Rosal)