The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) supports President Rodrigo Duterte’s executive order to institutionalise the acceptance of the Philippine Identification (PhilID) or Philippine Identification System (PhilSys).
This will enable the use of PhilID and PhilSys as sufficient proof of identity and age in all government and private transactions.
BSP said that the executive order will encourage Filipinos, especially the marginalised and those from low-income households with no government-issued IDs, to open bank accounts paving the way for their inclusion into the formal financial system and reducing their vulnerability to onerous lending and other practices.
In relation to this, the BSP had issued a memorandum on 21 October 2021, reminding BSP-supervised financial institutions (BSFIs) to accept the PhilID, in both physical and mobile formats, as sufficient proof of identity.
BSP has also directed the BSFIs in the same memo to include the PhilID in their list of valid IDs displayed at their physical branch as well as official websites, social media handles, and other consumer information channels.
Benjamin E. Diokno, Governor of BSP said,
“”EO No. 162 is supportive of the Duterte administration’s thrust to eliminate red tape in government transactions.
The issuance of BSP Memo No. M-2021-057, pursuant to Republic Act No. 11055 or the PhilSys Act, supports the wide scale opening of transaction accounts, particularly the Basic Deposit Account (BDA) that is designed to meet the needs of the unbanked and promote greater financial inclusion,”
As of third quarter 2021, 3.6 million new BDAs were opened from the fourth quarter of 2019, while active e-money accounts increased by 16.8 million between year end 2019 and 2020.
As of 31 January 2022, a total of 7,384,553 PhilSys registrants have opened transaction accounts for free through registration sites under the co-location agreement between the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the Land Bank of the Philippines.
In addition, the PSA will soon launch a mobile version of the PhilID as a digital alternative to the physical PhilSys card and the PSA Quick Response Code Verification System, which will promote broader and seamless acceptance of the PhilID by financial institutions for various services.
