The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has increased the use of e-money by the public after it collected P831.8 million from coin deposit machines this month.

On Tuesday, the BSP said the deposited coins reached this amount as of 15 July as deposit transactions increased to 202,110.

Launched in June last year, the BSP said the coin deposit machines have received over 145 million coin pieces which can be exchanged for e-money into e-wallets or mobile banking apps or for shopping vouchers.

The machines are located at the country’s major malls and supermarkets like Robinsons Malls, SM Malls, Festival Mall, Robinsons Supermarkets and SM Hypermarkets.

Digital transactions

BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto Tangonan reported digital transactions accounted for 52.8 percent of all monthly retail payments last year, exceeding the BSP target of 50 percent for the period. The total transaction value reached P6.1 trillion.

For this year, the BSP aims to increase the share of digital transactions to 70 percent of all retail payments.

Tangonan said the BSP continues to collaborate with other government agencies and the private sector to further encourage Filipinos to use e-money for services besides shopping.

“We have to digitalize the other use cases where Filipinos still prefer to use cash. We want to have an alternative to transport payments that will solve transport service providers’ lack of change to passengers,” he said.

Support from private banks

In support of the digitalization of payments and savings as well, GoTyme Bank, the digital bank of the Gokongwei Group of Companies, recently introduced a savings product that allows coin depositors to transfer their money into GoTyme accounts to earn 60 times higher interest in a year than the average savings accounts.

GoTyme said it has attracted over 3 million clients for digital financial services since it started operations in 2022.

Meanwhile, the Bank of the Philippine Islands said at least 70 percent of its clients are actively using its mobile app.