By Denise A. Valdez
Reporter
AF PAYMENTS, Inc., the company behind tap-and-go payment system “beep,” said it has sold more than five million cards as of November 2018 and expects user growth at 1% to 2% annually.
“The numbers go up every year… Two out of three Filipinos are now using beep cards to take their journey… We see a steady pick-up… I think it will grow by 1% or 2% each year,” AF Payments president and chief executive officer Peter Maher said in a media briefing in Makati City on Tuesday.
He noted there’s a “good momentum” in the growth of commuters who are gradually adapting a cashless mode of payment in the country as e-wallet firms get more aggressive in encouraging more users.
The joint venture of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) and Ayala Corp. reported it was able to monitor one billion transactions using the beep card this year, and plans to boost this further by rolling out more payment services that would focus mostly in the transportation sector.
“Transportation is first and foremost our focus. But then the technology is very usable in many, many sectors… The whole technology has many, many use cases. We’re trying not to spread our use cases so far and wide. We want to be really quite focused on transportation,” Mr. Maher said.
He said the company plans to have a stronger presence in buses, modern jeepneys and parking spaces soon. AF Payments also hopes to expand its reach in more locations outside Metro Manila after starting operations in General Santos earlier this year.
Aside from beep card transactions, Mr. Maher said cash ticketing, fixed fare, distance-based fare and transit passes are also being considered. “We do about two million transactions a month outside rail. That’s your buses, your jeepneys, your retail, your tollway. So that’s the base that we want to grow,” he said.
He noted that non-rail transactions help the company recover its investments in the rail sector.
“We invest in the rail, and we don’t get paid for that. So the business case for this project was to extend the use of the beep card outside of rail. That’s where we get paid. That’s where our shareholders can get a return of their investments,” Mr. Maher said.
AF Payments is the government’s private concessionaire for the P1.72-billion automatic fare collection system at Metro Manila’s railways. It started managing the ticketing system at the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1), LRT-2 and on the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3) in 2015.
Mr. Maher said the three train lines record about one million beep transactions every day.
Outside transportation, the company also has partnerships with several convenience and retail stores such as FamilyMart, 7-Eleven, Robinsons, Movieworld, Wendy’s, Binalot, Auntie Anne’s and Worship Generation.
