English
More Filipinos carry less cash – Visa
MANILA, Philippines — More Filipinos are carrying less cash in their wallets as they shifted to contactless payments last year amid the COVID restrictions, according to the latest Consumer Payment Attitudes Study of Visa.
Dan Wolbert, country manager for the Philippines and Guam at Visa, said in a virtual press conference that the preference for cashless payments is clearly gaining momentum in the Philippines.
“Our study showed more Filipinos are confident to get by without cash and for longer periods of time – with more than half feeling confident to get by for a week or longer, as cashless payment options grow,” Wolbert said.
Wolbert said the study showed that 60 percent of respondents said there was a decrease in the cash that they carried, while 66 percent of respondents said there was a decrease in their cash usage.
Wolbert said Filipinos are now using different cashless payment options and venturing more on online shopping and e-commerce, as well as home delivery services.
He also said more consumers are opening digital and virtual banking accounts.
“The current pandemic has changed how Filipinos look at many aspects of their lives, including their everyday needs, from purchasing necessities to paying bills,” he said.
Wolbert said the study showed that 84 percent of consumers have attempted to go cashless last year, higher than the 79 percent recorded in 2020.
Furthermore, 38 percent of respondents are confident that there is a possibility of a cashless society by 2025 under the current circumstances.
For Filipinos, going cashless means being safe, having convenience, and being able to track their financial records easily. Spend categories leading this transition to cashless in the country are bill payments, supermarket expenditure, and retail shopping.
“Filipinos believe COVID-19 has accelerated the country’s transition to a cashless society by at least three years. Now, seven out of 10 consumers anticipate that the Philippines can become fully cashless within the next seven to 10 years,” Wolbert said.
Cashless payment usage in the country is increasing across a variety of payment options, where Filipinos’ have a preference to use mobile wallets (64 percent), card payments online (52 percent), card payments at physical merchants (44 percent), and QR payments (31 percent).
This shows that the pandemic has also driven the uptake of cashless payment methods, especially mobile wallets and card payments online, with a large number of first-time users due to the pandemic.
Contactless payments, on the other hand, are seen as an emerging payment method in the Philippines. About 83 percent of Filipinos are aware of contactless payments, while 69 percent have made contactless payments in 2021.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) aims to convert 50 percent of total retail transactions to electronic channels and increase the number of Filipino adults with bank accounts to 70 percent by 2023 under its Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap.
Source: https://www.philstar.com/business/2022/03/31/2171042/more-filipinos-carry-less-cash-visa