THE high volume of online transactions brought about by mobility restrictions prompted the central bank to upgrade the gross settlement system, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno announced on Thursday.
In a virtual news briefing, Diokno said the country’s next-generation peso real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) “PhilPaSSPlus” is now on live run. The PhilPaSSPlus RTGS can settle higher volumes of payment instructions at faster speed compared with the RTGS system that the BSP has decommissioned, according to documents provided by the BSP.
PhilPaSS is a real-time gross settlement system that is owned and operated by the BSP. It processes and settles interbank payment transactions of banks through their demand deposit accounts.
The PhilPaSSPlus project was launched in December 2019. The development of this new facility aims to equip the country with state-of-the-art technology, enabling its RTGS to deliver comprehensive functionalities and settle larger volumes of financial transactions of varying types and complexities.
“Equipped with advanced features, ‘PhilPaSSPlus’ is a key milestone in our continuing efforts to have an efficient, secure and inclusive digital settlement platform for both large value and retail payments,” Diokno said.
PhilPaSSPlus also accepts only the globally prescribed ISO 20022 payment messaging standard, enabling the country to integrate with both domestic and cross-border payment ecosystems.
“PhilPaSSPlus forms part of the BSP’s digital transformation initiatives, which entail leveraging on emerging technologies to expedite payment services that have become a necessity in these extraordinary times,” Diokno said.
Just recently, the BSP reported that Filipinos continued to shift towards digital banking due to the movement and operational restrictions brought about by the government’s efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the country.
In particular, financial transactions through the country’s two automated clearing houses—PESONet and InstaPay—were higher by 276 percent in volume and 127 percent in value in April, compared to the figures recorded during the same month in 2020.