As part of a project approved by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), digital payments are set to be installed in public markets, sari-sari stores, and tricycle hubs.
The two agencies have jointly produced a memorandum circular to push for the development of the Paleng-QR PH program, which seeks to impose digital payments at the grassroots level with the support of local governments.
Financial service providers will also play an essential role during the account opening process by assisting the customers, including printing out QR codes for the newly opened accounts. The local government units (LGUs) will be offering promotions such as “Account Opening Days” with QR PH-enabled financial service providers (FSPs).Â
This will enable them to have formal accounts by next year and achieve its objective of having 70 percent of adult Filipinos own proper accounts. Essentially, it means the LGUs will be helping the BSP to onboard the targeted users.
From the BSP’s point of view, it has approved a QR standard that will ensure that the system uses a more straightforward structure and will be more standardized. It has, in particular, given approval to several digital banking licenses to broaden the reach of the adoption of online payments for the country in addition to the provision of financial services.
Eduardo M. Año, Secretary of the DILG, urged local government units to take advantage of the Paleng-QR PH program to ensure that financial transactions are safer and more efficient.
It is also worth noting that BSP and DILG developed the Paleng-QR PH program in response to the Paleng-QR note written by University of the Philippines-Los Baños students. The latter were finalists during the BSP Youth Summit in 2021.
