E-peso

The Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development envisions capitalizing and bringing to scale game-changing innovation with the potential to solve long-standing development challenges.

USAID/Philippines Cities Development Initiative (CDI) is a crucial component of the U.S.-Philippines Partnership for Growth (PFG), a bilateral engagement between the U.S. Government (USG) and the Government of the Philippines (GPH) whose aim is to shift the Philippines to a sustained, broad-based, more inclusive growth trajectory on par with other high-performing emerging economies in the region. USAID believes that electronic payments (ePayments) can transform development and facilitate access to economic opportunity that the PFG and CDI promise.

A country's payment system facilitates trade and exchange. A well-functioning payment system strengthens a country's financial infrastructure to promote commercial activities. In expanding the range of payment options available within a country, ePayments can help stimulate local consumption by easing the flow of financial resources to a large portion of the population.

In the Philippines, over 90% of payment transactions are still done in the medium of cash while only 26% of Filipinos enjoy access to formal financial channels. Six hundred ten (610) out of the 1,635 municipalities do not have banks, and as much as half of mobile users in the Philippines are unbanked. These statistics indicate a huge development dividend to shift retail payments from cash to electronic payment systems, which have the potential to help the Philippines reach development goals faster and make those gains sustainable.

In line with Mission strategic objectives, E-PESO seeks to accelerate the shift to digital payments by facilitating the critical mass of both the supply and demand-side users of the retail e-payment (electronic payment) system.

E-PESO seeks to:

1. Drive transaction volume of large payment streams;
2. Promote retail and market-level infrastructure;
3. Improve the enabling environment for e-payments, promote consumer protection and security measures; and,
4. Address gaps in the broader e-payment ecosystem.