Real-time payment transactions in the Philippines posted a 24 percent year-on-year growth in 2023, with transaction volume reaching 777 million and expected to hit 1.54 billion by 2028, data from the 2024 Prime Time for Real Time Report published by ACI Worldwide showed.
ACI Worldwide is a leader in real-time payments. The report was in partnership with GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Real-time payments pertain to the immediate transfer of funds 24/7 within a matter of seconds to the recipient’s account.
According to the report, the real-time payments’ share of all digital payments in the country is projected to grow to 58.7 percent by 2028, while its transaction value is expected to reach $209.6 billion in the same year.
As of 2023, real-time payments accounted for 47.2 percent of all Philippine digital payments, with a transaction value of $89.5 billion.
In 2018, InstaPay was introduced as the first real-time payment system in the Philippines.
This served as one of the critical rails for the national government’s thrust to digitize payments through the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap.
The launch of the BSP’s national quick response standard, QR Ph, in November 2019 further boosted familiarity with InstaPay by providing consumers with a faster and more convenient way to make person-to-person fund transfers by simply scanning a QR code.
“Real-time payments hold the potential to facilitate greater economic growth and financial inclusion in the Philippines by eliminating payment friction and injecting greater liquidity in the financial system. As Filipinos continue to embrace digitization, we encourage the local banks and financial institutions to harness technological innovations that will enable them to fully leverage the capabilities of real-time transactions,” said Leslie Choo, Senior Vice President, Managing Director — APAC, ACI Worldwide.
The surge in digital payments–including real-time payments–in the Philippines accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic and prompted the shift towards a cashless economy.
According to the report, it addresses a growing consumer demand for simpler, speedier and more secure transactions, which Filipino consumers indicated as the top reasons for using digital payment tools.
The report has found that there is a strong correlation between real-time payments growth and mobile wallet adoption.
