The central bank is looking at the possibility of linking the country’s electronic payment networks with its counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). “The more interesting prospect, potentially, is to link up the instant payment networks regionally,” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. told reporters in an interview. The Philippine EFT System and Operations Network is a batch electronic fund transfer (EFT) payment system that is expected to provide an alternative to the still widely used paper-based check system. InstaPay, meanwhile, is an electronic fund transfer service that allows customers to transfer peso funds almost instantly between accounts of participating central bank-supervised banks and non-bank e-money issuers in the Philippines. Espenilla has said that the BSP’s vision of higher electronic payments usage by 2020 would be realized via PESONet and InstaPay.

Source: Manila Times April 30, 2018 16:30 UTC