Visa study shows that more Filipinos are now embracing cashless payments

September 3, 2019September 3, 2019 Tita Jane 0 Comments cashless payments, contactless payments, credit cards, debit cards, e-commerce, ecommerce, electronic payments, Visa, Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes Study

If you have used an app’s QR code to settle your purchases, tapped a debit card to a scanning device to digitally pay for food, or used a debit or credit card for a Grab ride, you are one of the millions of Filipinos now using cashless payments.

The latest Visa Consumer Attitudes Study, which studied 3,000 individuals across 8 markets in Southeast Asia, showed that two out of three respondents in the Philippines have tried cashless payments and close to 60% have gone cashless for at least a few days.

Dan Wolbert, Visa’s Country Manager for the Philippines and Guam, presented the study to the media recently at The Peninsula Manila.

Visa Country Manager for the Philippines and Guam, Dan Wolbert, talks about the Filipinos’ growing interest and usage of cashless payments.

Here are the highlights of the study:

Survey Mechanics

* The 3,000 respondents came from the following countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand & Vietnam

* 500 respondents were from the Philippines with income brackets ranging from PhP 12,000-80,000 monthly income (the population with bank accounts)

* Online questionnaires were used in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao (an indication of how digitally savvy the respondents were)

Survey Findings

* CASH is still king in the Philippines. Most Filipinos still prefer this mode of payment although the trend shows that this is shifting to electronic payments. 75% of the respondents indicated that they would be using cashless payments more

* Respondents cited the top reasons why they prefer electronic payments: more convenient and speedier, hassle-free, and they do not have to carry large amounts of cash. Other benefits they cited include safety, security and tracking; wider acceptance in stores; and the special offers and rewards.

The Future of Cashless Payments in the Philippines

Visa is looking at more opportunities for introducing contactless payments (tapping a card instead of surrendering it to someone else for processing). The transportation industry is one such industry that will benefit from this. Just imagine the savings in time plus the convenience of going up a bus, riding a jeep, taxi, train or private-for-hire cars and just tapping your card on the device to pay. This is already a feature in many public transportation vehicles abroad.

With contactless payments, one’s card is also more secure. You hold your card at all times and do not need to surrender it to some waiter or cashier. This has always been my security concern with current debit/credit cards because while we are told to secure the 3-digit card verification code (CVC) at the back of the card, we normally surrender the card upon payment and that CVC is visible to the person processing our card payment.

6 out of every 10 respondents in this survey were also looking forward to using artificial intelligence (AI) bots to order and pay for their purchases. A whopping 90% of the respondents also showed interest in self-service checkout kiosks instead of lining up at cashier counters.

As technology becomes an enabler of more e-commerce activities, more Filipinos (and Asians) will be encouraged to go cashless. That, I believe, is a good thing. The most important thing that Visa and other companies involved in cashless payment systems should remember is that, aside from growing their market of users, they need to ensure that their systems always provide robust and strong security and privacy features that each consumer expects.