UnionBank’s UPAY for MSMEs helps level the playing field
Since the start of this pandemic, consumers have been forced to go into e-wallets and digital payments. Last month, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported that digital payments made up 20.1 percent of all transactions in 2020, more than double the figure from two years ago of 10 percent. This strong momentum is creating opportunities particularly for
enterprising Filipinos who engage in e-commerce. But with over 90 percent of businesses in the Philippines comprising micro, small, and business enterprises (MSMEs), are these businesses ready to accept digital payments?
At UnionBank’s 12th E-TalkTales media event, its Vice President and MSME Segment Head Jaypee Soliman, and Merchant Acquiring and Payment Gateway Head Gerry Austria announced UPAY for MSMEs which would make e-payments easier and secure not only for customers but also for MSMEs. This is a way of leveling the playing field for MSMEs. Previously, the collection of digital payments was only available to the bigger merchants as part of enterprise platforms. These were too technologically demanding and expensive for smaller players.
UPAY is a groundbreaking digital payments solution designed to make acceptance of multiple payment options accessible to MSMEs. It offers a fully integrated, single platform payment collection complete with other features that can make inbound payments easier for entrepreneurs, including the option to generate payment links with multiple collection channels, and the option to generate InstaPay QRPH for digital and physical channels.
According to Soliman, UPAY is embedded in its MSME Business Banking app. “Businesses of all sizes and types now have the power to generate payment links, request payments, send it to their customers and provide multiple payment options, all these reconciled and credited to a single UnionBank account”, he said.
MSMEs can now collect payment through various channels:
- UnionBank Online
- Gcash and GrabPay
- OTC (Palawan Express, ECPay Partner Outlets, Cebuana Lhuillier)
- Debit and Credit cards (Visa and Mastercard)*
- Instapay*
* coming soon (according to UnionBank website as of this article’s post date)
“When we conceptualized UPAY for MSMEs, we wanted to do away with all the different hassles that the merchant is experiencing to set up his payments, one of which is having to connect to a point-of-sale system, having to have different devices, having to have to download different apps,” Austria said.
“Second, it’s the efficiency in doing business. You don’t need to be in your physical store to actually have a customer pay you. You can actually be vacationing somewhere else and someone wants to buy a product which they saw through your post on Instagram or Facebook. You can actually just create a payment link and send it to that customer, so it’s very convenient for both the merchant and the customer,” Austria added.
