IN anticipation of the long five-day Holy Week break including Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor), the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has issued a reminder to all banks and non-banks providing e-payments or digital transactions via PESONet and InstaPay to make sure online services will not bog down or interrupted during the holidays.
Memorandum No. M-2023-011 released on March 30, BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto E. Tangonan said e-payment providers must make available and accessible customer service support for clients during the regular and special non-working days.
Lenten season starts on April 6, Maundy Thursday, followed by April 7 Good Friday and April 8, which is a weekend and a Black Saturday holiday.
April 9 is both Easter Sunday and Araw ng Kagitingan or Day of Valor. Based on Proclamation 90, the Day of Valor will be commemorated on April 10 which is a Monday. Araw ng Kagitingan remembers the heroes of World War II and the Fall of Bataan to Japanese troops during the harrowing days of Jan. 7 until April 9, 1942. World War II in the Philippines ended on Sept. 2, 1945.
Tangonan said banks and non-banks should ensure hotlines and other support services are available to “promptly and effectively provide assistance to clients regarding their PESONet and InstaPay-related concerns during these non-working periods.”
He also said supervised financial institutions or BSFIs “must ensure that the public is accorded adequate and uninterrupted customer support service” at all times.
The memo included a reminder to follow a previous memo issued on June 6, 2022, to effective mechanisms in place to inform the public about e-payments and to handle PESONet and InstaPay consumer complaints in a timely manner.
Based on that memo (Memorandum No. 029), PESONet and InstaPay complaints will be submitted to the BSP through the Philippine Payments Management Inc. (PPMl), which is the accredited payment system management body for retail payments and BSP’s partner for its three-year Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap.
PPMI monitors and checks that all its members are compliant with the National Retail Payment System framework as well as following the strict guidelines under the BSP’s Financial Consumer Protection framework.
BSFIs are required to submit the status of their compliance to the PPMI. The PPMI will then report this to the BSP Payment System Oversight Department on a semestral basis.
Based on the 2022 memo, under the BSP’s pro-consumer circulars, BSFIs must post “pertinent” information on the “redress mechanism” of complaints concerning PESONet and InstaPay. They should also make sure that up-to-date contact information for consumer concerns on its website and official social media pages are also posted.
SFIs should also ensure access to a wide range of accessible contact channels for communication of consumer concerns, including but not limited to customer service hotlines, email, chatbot, and make available timely and adequate response to concerns sent via said channels.
PESONet and InstaPay was launched in 2017 and 2018 and their usage reached its heights during the pandemic.
PESONet is a batch electronic fund transfer service and is a viable alternative for checks and recurring payments. InstaPay, on the other hand, is a real-time, low-value payment substitute for cash transactions.
PESONet is operated by the Philippine Clearing House Corporation while BancNet operates InstaPay. (Lee C. Chipongian/ MB)
