THE use of mobile wallets in the Philippines has become just as popular as using cash, said Visa Country Manager for the Philippines Jeff Navarro on Thursday, February 29.
Based on Visa’s 2023 Consumer Payment Attitudes survey, cash usage in the Philippines decreased to 87 percent from 96 percent in 2022.
Mobile wallet usage also came in at 87 percent, with the majority going for the QR code payment option. Meanwhile, card payment usage was at 70 percent.
“In the past, there used to be a big disparity between cash, mobile, and cards. But what we’ve seen now is mobile payments (are) more or less synonymous (with cash),” said Navarro during the release of the survey results.
Forty-three percent of respondents also said they carried less cash in their wallets in 2023 as compared to the previous year.
The study found that 83 of Filipino consumers, led by the younger and affluent segments, even attempted to live without cash, and were able to manage for an average of 10 days.
Navarro attributed the growing confidence of Filipinos to go cashless to the increase in the number of establishments that accept and can process digital payments.
“Have you seen an increase in the number of merchants that support mobile wallets? 87 percent said yes. Sixty-three percent also saw an increase in card acceptance through swiping and 52 percent believe and saw that it also increased for contactless (cards). So doon nanggagaling ‘yung level of confidence on why they are now okay to say, yes, I can survive without cash,” said Navarro.
Supermarkets, food and dining, and bill payments were the leading merchant categories that consumers observed to have opened up acceptance of cashless payment methods compared to a year ago.
Because of the results of the study, Navarro said he believes the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) was “likely” able to hit its goal of shifting half of all retail payments in 2023 to digital from cash.
According to the latest data released by the BSP, the share in terms of volume of digital payments over total retail payments stood at 42.1 percent in 2022.
Moving forward, the Visa study also showed that one in three consumers foresee the Philippines becoming a cashless society by 2030.
However, Navarro also acknowledged that internet connection is still a big problem in some areas in the country. That’s why he said Visa is also looking at possible ways to facilitate offline cashless payments.
“There will be areas where the signal of the internet may be very weak so we’re trying to work with some of our issuers and acquirers to see if we can do something that’s offline. There’s still no concrete solution but it’s really one of those that we want to do because it supports the national agenda of the government for financial inclusion,” he said.
The Visa study was based on interviews conducted in October to November 2023 with 1,000 Filipino consumers aged 18 to 65 years old, spread across different cities/regions and income brackets. (ABS-CBN News)
