Philippines testing a new payments framework

As the country’s chief financial regulator says, the Philippine economy can expect to see faster, more efficient, and safer transactions and money transfers once an improved payments framework is adopted fully by the central bank and its private sector partners.

An industry-wide rehearsal is now in full swing for the live run of the new peso real-time gross settlement (RTGS) platform of the next-generation Philippine Payment and Settlement System.

The completion of the project’s user acceptance test by the BSP in the first quarter of 2021 kicked off the market rehearsal where key functionalities of PhilPaSSplus were being tested by banks and other participating institutions prior to implementation.

As PhilPaSSplus will accept only communication messages which conform to the SWIFT-prescribed ISO 20022 format, it will advance interoperability of payment systems across the Philippines and the integration of the country with other jurisdictions in the payment space.