Digital fund transfer transactions in the Philippines rose between 10 and 50 percent after banks and e-wallet providers lowered their transfer fees, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.
BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto Tangonan disclosed the figures in an interview with One News TV on Tuesday, adding that the central bank will conduct a fuller review of transaction volumes by the end of July. He said preliminary reports from banks and other financial institutions already indicate a sharp increase in usage following the fee cuts.
Tangonan also noted that banks have been signing up new customers since the BSP required supervised financial institutions to accept the national ID as sufficient proof of identity for opening deposit and transaction accounts.
“We noted that the growth of the digital payments year-on-year has more or less approached a plateau,” Tangonan said. “We need a second wind in order to propel the greater usage of digital payments, especially to those who are still non-users.”
The fee cuts stem from BSP Circular No. 1238, which requires banks and other BSP-supervised institutions to ensure that fees for person-to-person digital transfers between accounts at different institutions do not materially differ from transfers within the same institution. Since intra-bank or intra-wallet transfers are typically free, the BSP said any additional charge for interbank or interwallet transfers should largely reflect fees paid to the network switch operator.
The central bank said institutions may still apply differentiated pricing based on legitimate business or operational considerations, but must ensure their fee structures do not result in one group of users subsidizing another.
BSP data show digital channels accounted for 57.4 percent of retail payments as of 2024. However, the central bank’s 2025 Consumer Finance and Inclusion Survey found that only 50 percent of Filipino adults held a formal financial account – including bank, e-wallet, and other transaction accounts – down from 56 percent in 2021.
Tangonan said high transfer fees had been among the main reasons many Filipinos hesitated to open financial accounts. “We have to address that,” he said. “And with the initial market reaction that we are hearing from the banks and the e-wallets, the response is very good.”
Banks covered by Circular No. 1238 include BDO, BPI, Metrobank, LandBank, UnionBank, Chinabank, PNB, and RCBC, among other BSP-supervised institutions offering InstaPay and PESONet transfers.
