A growing number of Filipinos are using digital payment platforms as shown by transaction records of electronic clearing houses run by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
BSP data showed the value of transactions that went through InstaPay surged 54.1 percent to P931 billion in May from P604 billion a year earlier.
The InstaPay transactions in May were also 10.7 percent higher than P841 billion recorded in April.
PESONet transactions, on the other hand, climbed 26.7 percent in value to P1.050 trillion in May from P829 billion a year earlier, also shown by the BSP data.
Compared with the PESONet transactions in April 2025, which amounted to P1.012 trillion, the transaction value in May was 3.7 percent higher.
InstaPay and PESONet are automated clearing houses that operate under the BSP’s National Retail Payment System.
By volume, the number of InstaPay transactions in May surged 218.6 percent to 360 million from 113 million a year earlier.
Month-on-month, InstaPay’s volume of transactions in May registered a 20.8 percent increase from 298 million in April 2025.
The volume of transactions processed
by PESONet, meanwhile, rose 14.5 percent to 9.5 million last May from 8.3 million a year earlier.
It was also 6.7 percent more than the 8.9 million transactions handled in April 2025.
InstaPay is an electronic fund transfer facility that handles single transactions of up to P50,000 in real time.
PESONet, on the other hand, can accommodate transactions that are higher in value than PESONet’s ceiling. It serves as the electronic alternative to the paper-based check payment system.
Michael Ricafort, RCBC’s chief economist, said the increase reflects consumers’ continued reliance on online transactions, which have accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ricafort said it is “also due to increased adoption of online banking and payment transactions in recent years as part of the e-commerce ecosystem and the increased shift from over-the-counter banking transactions.”
He said more people prefer using InstaPay and PESONet instead of using bank checks and other over-the-counter payment methods since these are “faster, safer, and more convenient for the general public from anywhere around the world.”
“People save on costs and time in doing so,” he added.
Ricafort said the double-digit growth rates also reflect the increased use of e-wallets by Filipinos that are already integrated to digital banking platforms as an alternative to cash, checks, and over-the-counter payment transactions
“Thus, these would help further increase financial inclusion, especially among unbanked Filipinos, especially in areas where there are no physical bank branches, for as long as there is a mobile phone signal to facilitate digital banking and e-wallet transactions,” Ricafort said.
The BSP said earlier it is targeting a 60-70 percent share of digital payments by 2028.
In a report released last year, the BSP stated that the share of digital payment transactions in total monthly retail payments in the Philippines increased from 42.1 percent in 2022 to 52.8 percent in 2023.
This indicates that the central bank has surpassed its target of digitalizing 50 percent of retail payments volume in the country under its Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap 2018-2023.
In 2023, the main contributors to the rise in e-payments were merchant payments, which accounted for 64.9 percent of monthly digital payments volume, person-to-person transfers at 19.3 percent, and business-to-business supplier payments at 6.1 percent.
The BSP said this is consistent with growth in ownership of transaction accounts, which are mostly e-money accounts that are increasingly used for payments.
It did not provide data for 2024.
With the country’s progress in digital payments adoption, the BSP said it is strategically positioned to advance digital payments and empower Filipino businesses and consumers to become more active contributors to economic growth.
