By JUN VALLECERA/Business Mirror | 04/21/2009 3:43 PM
The pioneering work done by the country’s telecommunications companies to promote the use of electronic money or e-money should soon see competition from your neighborhood sari-sari store, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Monday.
According to Deputy BSP Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr., the monetary authorities are very receptive to the proposal allowing still more nonbank financial entities like pawnshops, post offices, retail chain stores and the like to act as e-money agents like the telcos do at present.
He acknowledged, however, that while the idea is sound, it is also one filled with practical issues that need to be ironed out.
Globe Telecommunication’s G-Cash product and Smart Communication’s Smart Money pioneered the use of e-money transfers by using the short messaging service or SMS platform, Espenilla said.
Making the ubiquitous sari-sari store, pawnshops, retail chains of Mercury Drug or 7-Eleven and even the country’s snail-mail offices act as e-money agents is something the BSP is seriously looking into.
“I am open to the idea of permitting your neighborhood sari-sari store as conduit for e-money but not as a deposit-taking entity,” Espenilla said.
Expanding the number of authorized e-money agents beyond the realm of the telcos is, after all, the very essence of the BSP’s financial-inclusion program, he explained.
At the moment, the e-money concept and its popularity is very limited and known to just a relatively few number of people able to use a cellular phone.
The challenge, according to Espenilla, is how to expand the authorized agents beyond the mostly urban-based telco cash centers while also addressing the all-important know-your-customer or KYC rule the BSP imposes on all regulated financial entities.
He ruled out the use of these e-money agents for money laundering, as such transactions are low-volume and leave easily identifiable electronic trails that illicit money launderers avoid like the plague.
“E-money is basically retail, but the nitty-gritty issues pertain to KYC. The question is, can we allow pawnshops which we already regulate to do KYC?” Espenilla noted.
Should the idea prove feasible, Espenilla said one can in theory open an e-money account without actually going to a bank.
Espenilla reiterated that while allowing sari-sari stores to act as e-money agents is highly attractive, the likelihood of making them deposit-taking entities as well is nil.
No comments:
Post a Comment