Visa Prepares Philippines Banks for Apple Pay and Google Pay
Under BSP guidelines, these services will link directly to existing bank accounts, with security handled by Visa's tokenisation technology, which replaces card numbers with a secure digital token.
The digital payments company recently held a workshop, bringing together local banks with regional partners like Google Southeast Asia and Vietcombank. During the session, these partners shared best practices on how they successfully introduced the services in their respective markets.
Local banks are central to enabling these services because the digital wallets cannot hold funds directly. Therefore, users must link the services to their existing credit, debit, or e-money account.
The core security feature for these payments is tokenisation, a technology that replaces a card’s 16-digit number with a unique, secure digital token.
This token is stored on the user’s device and is used to authorise payments, ensuring that the actual card information is never shared with merchants.
According to Visa, this technology has helped cut payment fraud rates by more than half globally.
Jeffrey Navarro, Visa Country Manager for the Philippines, emphasised the security aspect.
Jeff Navarro
“Each tap is protected by Visa’s network token technology, ensuring trust and security while advancing the Philippines’ digital payments landscape,” he said.
The push for these services aligns with the significant growth of digital payments in the country.
The latest BSP data shows that digital transactions now account for 57.4% of total retail payment volume in the Philippines, exceeding the government’s 2024 target and putting it on track to meet the 70% target by 2028.
