BSP eyes Baguio as pilot site for digital payments
BAGUIO CITY – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) are considering this city as a pilot site for the ‘Paleng-QR Ph’ program promoting cashless payments in public markets and local transportation.
BSP Deputy Governor Berna Romulo-Puyat introduced the program to City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, Councilors Isabelo Cosalan, Peter Fianza and City Treasurer Alex Cabarrubias and stakeholders from the city market during a preliminary consultation on Wednesday, July 13.
Atty. Guiller Asido, Director Joyce Suficiencia and Regional Director Noel Neil Malimban explained the program which aims to create a digital payments ecosystem making use of existing financial service providers like G-Cash, Paymaya and others to facilitate cashless transactions between merchants and consumers.
Magalong welcomed the program, it being aligned with the city’s digital transformation aspiration.
He said the program will help the city realize its goal of improving its collection system at the city market and stamping out fraudulent activities, thereby increasing its revenues.
On the part of the vendors, he said this will also benefit them in terms of speeding up payment and ensuring correctness in transactions.
“Transactions will be fast and it will be monitored and you will no longer have problems with the coin,” said Magalong as he appealed to the vendors to be open to the program.
“It can even prevent the spread of disease that comes from handling money. On the part of the city government, we will be able to resolve corruption that results in low revenue,” added Magalong.
He assured that the program will not be implemented without preparing the merchants to the new system and without addressing the concerns on the prohibitive transaction fees that may be levied by the service providers.
“We will teach you to adapt to the process and not be surprised. Those who are interested will be given priority. We will also work with the service providers on how we can reduce the charges,” Magalong added.