President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. supports the Paleng-QR Ph Plus program of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which enables market vendors, public transport drivers, and other merchants to accept and use e-payments for their transactions using quick response (QR) codes.
The President expressed his support at the meeting of the Private Sector Advisory Council Digital Infrastructure Cluster in Malacañang on 1 June 2023. The President sees the use of digital payments as a way to spur economic activities with the participation of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
BSP Governor Felipe M. Medalla said that through the Paleng-QR Ph Plus, digital databases that track transaction habits can serve as a basis for evaluating the creditworthiness of households and MSMEs without credit histories or sufficient collateral for accessing loans and other financial services. “This helps in the financial inclusion advocacy of the government,” he added.
Spearheaded by the BSP and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Paleng-QR Ph Plus encourages the use of QR technology as a convenient, safe, and efficient payment solution under the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion 2022-2028.
By scanning merchants’ QR codes using cellphones, customers can pay for goods and services in a quick and convenient manner. The program is also in line with the BSP’s Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap 2020-2023, which aims to transform half of the volume of retail payments in the country into digital form and onboard 70 percent of Filipino adults to the formal financial system by this year.
The BSP has led the launching of the Paleng-QR Ph Plus program in the cities of Baguio, Cebu, Davao, Naga, Tagbilaran, Pasig, Lapu-Lapu, Bacolod; and the towns of Camiling, Tarlac and Carmona, Cavite.
Full story from the Presidential Communications Office can be accessed here: https://pco.gov.ph/news_releases/pbbm-backs-paleng-qr-ph-plus-initiative-wants-wider-digital-financial-literacy/.
For more information on the Paleng-QR Ph Plus initiative, visit: https://bit.ly/PalengQRph.
