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The Philippines to Adopt Designated Payment Systems

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has introduced a revised circular requiring designated payment systems (DPS) to embrace the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructure (PFMI) to ensure the country’s national payment system’s continued safety, the efficiency of the flow of funds, and reliability (NPS).

The BSP Governor, who signed Circular No. 1126, asserted in the memo that the mandatory adoption of the PFMI will necessitate the adoption of its principles by all DPS participants. As of July, of this year, the BSP’s Peso Real-time Gross Settlement System (PhP-RTGS) is the country’s first DPS.

The Governor stated that the BSP will use PFMI assessment methodology to determine the DPS’s adherence to relevant principles, as well as identify potential risks and induce changes in the NPS. In terms of non-designated payment systems, he stated that the BSP could evaluate DPS participants’ practises and operations using key considerations under relevant principles such as credit and liquidity risk management and settlement.

The adoption of the standard is very timely given the surge of digital payments in the country, as it ensures payment systems to have safeguards in place which are at par with global practices.

– Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

The deployment of PFMI is in accordance with the Payment System Oversight Framework (PSOF) of the BSP and the National Payment Systems Act (NPSA). Implementation of the PFMI may be subject to cooperative arrangements with other regulatory authorities in cases involving non-payment system financial market infrastructures (FMI) and cross-border payment systems, according to the governor. The circular also established expectations for critical service providers (CSPs) as defined by the PSOF. It provides guidance and assistance in ensuring that a CSP’s operations are held to the same standards as the DPS’s.

The Bank for International Settlement and the International Organisation of Securities Commissions formed the PFMI. PFMI is essentially a collection of international standards for financial market infrastructures such as payment systems, central securities depositories, securities settlement systems, central counterparties, and trade repositories. Adoption of the PFMI will ensure that the payment system operates in accordance with global best practices in terms of safety, efficiency, and reliability. With the DPS conforming to the PFMI to be more resilient to financial crises and participant defaults, the public interest is better protected, promoting trust in payment systems.

All DPS, whether a systemically important payment system or a prominently important payment system, will use PFMI to design and conduct its operations. “Each DPS is expected to demonstrate adequate governance and risk management arrangements covering areas including access of participants to the system, management of liquidity, credit, operational, settlement and general business risks, efficiency, and transparency,” said the BSP.

The NPSA empowers the BSP, as payment system regulator, to designate a payment system if it determines that the payment system poses or has the potential to pose systemic risk, or if the designation is required to protect the public interest. The PhP-RTGS is the Philippines’ only payment system that allows for settlement with central bank money.

In an article, OpenGov Asia reported that the government of the Philippines has made e-commerce and electronic payment methods a priority in efforts to boost both financial and digital inclusion throughout the country. In line with this, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) recently reaffirmed that they will continue to promote the digitalisation of financial products and services in the country even after the restrictions forced by the pandemic are lifted.

Last year, the central bank released the Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap (DPTR) for 2020-2023. Under the DPTR, the BSP aims to increase customer preference for digital payments by converting 50% of total retail payments to digital form and increasing the number of financially included Filipino adults to 70% by onboarding them to the formal financial system via payment or transaction accounts.

The BSP’s open market operations, issuance of its securities, the Philippine Peso leg of the PhP-US Dollar transaction, and domestic securities transactions are all settled via the PhP-RTGS. It also provides deferred net settlement for retail payment systems such as checks, ATMs, and E-payments.

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