The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) has integrated the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) National ID Authentication Services eVerify platform into its system, allowing applicants to open a BPI account using their Digital National ID instead of a physical identification card. BPI and the PSA formalized the partnership during a signing ceremony on Thursday, July 30.
As of June 30, the PSA had issued Philippine Standard Numbers with verifiable National ID credentials to 92,988,897 people, and 91,893,866 of them could already access their Digital National ID through the eGovPH app. That means most registered Filipinos can now use their phones alone to verify their identity with BPI, without waiting for a plastic card to arrive.
BPI President and CEO Jose Teodoro “TG” Limcaoco explained how the verification works during the ceremony. “You take a selfie, you put your name and your birthday, and then it goes, pulls up your record from the National ID, and that’s how we verify you,” he said. The system cross-checks the selfie and personal details against the applicant’s PSA record in real time, without requiring a scan or photo of a physical card.
Limcaoco framed the move as a shift for the industry, not just for BPI. “This is not only good for BPI. This is really good for the whole banking system,” he said. “I foresee one day this is the only way it’s going to be.”
BPI joins a growing list of financial institutions that have connected their onboarding systems to the PSA’s National ID Authentication Services, including Asia United Bank, GoTyme Bank, Philippine National Bank, and GCash. PSA Deputy National Statistician Rosalinda Bautista said the agency’s goal is for every financial institution in the country to eventually adopt the system. The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) also commended the partnership, tying it to the broader push for a common government-backed identity layer that private companies can build on.
The numbers behind that push are already substantial. The PSA recorded more than 124 million successful National ID authentications as of June 30, of which over 44 million came from financial and other private institutions. By July 28, officials said the running total across all sectors, government and private combined, had climbed to about 145 million.
About 55 million physical National ID cards were issued before the PSA paused card printing. Filipinos without a plastic card can still request a free paper ID or rely on the Digital National ID in the eGovPH app, both of which carry the same authentication weight as the physical card under the partnership’s eVerify integration.
The PSA said it is positioning the National ID as a common verification layer that extends past banking and payments into healthcare, education, and social services, with BPI’s rollout serving as one of the more visible tests of that ambition in the financial sector.
