By Melissa Luz T. Lopez,
Senior Reporter

BANKS and nonbank players are set to launch next month a new clearing house that will allow electronic fund transfers across bank accounts and to electronic wallets, as part of an industry-wide push to boost digital payments.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Nestor A. Espenilla, Jr. said industry players are looking to roll out a clearing house for electronic fund transfers called the PESO Net, which will authorize electronic fund transfers across banks and e-wallets.

“What we hope to launch in November is the first clearing house under the NRPS (National Retail Payment System) framework… That will potentially replace check payments, so once people get used to electronic payments, you can just execute a payment by issuing a digital instruction so that payment will move digitally,” Mr. Espenilla told reporters in an ambush interview.

The plan is to establish the PESO Net clearing house for high-value electronic fund transfers, which will receive payment messages from one bank account to another and will process money transfers in batches.

The automated clearing house will build on the existing Philippine Clearing House Corp. Mr. Espenilla previously said they are eyeing to make the national government as the test case for the new platform through electronic transfers of employee salaries, budget releases, and revenue collections.

The BSP in 2015 announced the NRPS project, which aims to steer financial transactions gradually away from cash and checks towards digital fund transfers and e-wallets. Improved ease of access to money is seen to spur more economic activity, as the funds can be deployed for other uses once received by retail clients and businesses.

Another clearing house called the InstaPay — which will process real-time credit for online settlements worth P50,000 or less within and across banks — is also in the pipeline.

The new clearing houses were initially expected to be in place within the third quarter, although financial firms are still ironing out inter-operability agreements for the platform.

“The technology it has always been there, [but] the challenge is getting the players to cooperate. Remember, banks and nonbanks are natural competitors. They want to keep their customers to themselves,” Mr. Espenilla said when asked about bottlenecks, but noted that these players are now “on board.”

Earlier this month, the Bankers Association of the Philippines announced the creation of the Philippine Payments Management, Inc., which is an industry-led body that will oversee the clearing houses once they go live.

Separately, nonbank players engaged established FintechAlliance.ph last month, with the firms looking to forward increased use of financial technology in the Philippines.

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