The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Monday rolled out InstaPay, an automated clearing house that will be useful for electronic commerce payments where people use a card or phone in paying any transactions.
InstaPay followed the successful launch in November 2017 of Peso Net, the first clearing house under the National Retail Payment System, as part of its effort to establish a safe, efficient and reliable payment framework in the country.
InstaPay is an electronic fund transfer service that allows customers to transfer peso funds almost instantly between accounts of participating banks supervised by Bangko Sentral and non-bank e-money issuers in the country. The service is available 24 hours a day, all year round.
Customers can transfer funds up to P50,000 per transaction as many times during the day. They should, however, contact their bank or non-bank e-money issuer to verify if there is a minimum amount for sending.
Bangko Sentral deputy director and National Retail Payment System project head Raymond Estioko said during a briefing he was expecting more banks to participate in InstaPay by the middle of the year.
InstaPay’s participating institutions (for both sending and receiving) included Asia United Bank, BDO Unibank, China Banking Corp., China Bank Savings, Equicom Savings Bank, Security Bank and Union Bank of the Philippines, as of April 23, 2018.
For receiving only banks, these are CTBC Bank, East West Bank, Land Bank of the Philippines, Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., Omnipay, PayMaya, Philtrust Bank, Philippine Savings Bank, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., Robinsons Bank, Sun Savings Bank, United Coconut Planters Bank and Yuanta Savings Bank. Julito G. Rada
Bangko Sentral Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. said the implementation of the two automated clearing houses would result in a number of unbanked Filipinos included in the financial system by 2020.
