UnionBank recently held the 12th E-Media TalkTales as the Philippines’ foremost bank for MSMES discussed the critical role of digitizing payments in the country’s fast-evolving market.
Filipinos are now utilizing digital payments more than ever. Last month, the Banko 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.
To help micro, small, and
medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country capitalize on this growing trend,
Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank), the region’s digital trailblazer and
the country’s foremost bank for MSMEs, has launched a groundbreaking feature
that will make e-payments easier and secure not only for customers but also for
MSMEs—the new UPAY for MSME.
This was
unveiled at the Bank's 12th E-TalkTales media event, wherein UnionBank Vice
President and MSME Segment Head Jaypee Soliman, and UnionBank Merchant
Acquiring and Payment Gateway Head Gerry Austria led discussions on the
critical role of digitizing payments in the country's fast evolving market.
Soliman began the discussions by talking about the state of digital
payments in the country, citing the significant growth in the number of
Filipinos who utilize these payment solutions. This is an indication that Filipinos
are now more open to the idea of becoming a cash-lite society.
“This shows how
the consumers are now transacting digitally. They are ready. They are there. The
number of Filipinos having e-wallets and bank accounts continue to grow. But
the question is, are the MSMEs ready to accept digital payments?"
This is where UPAY comes in. 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.
"UPAY for MSMEs is a payment gateway that is embedded in our
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," Soliman said.
What makes UPAY
convenient for accepting payments is that customers can choose their preferred
payment channel either via Unionbank Online, InstaPay, Other Digital Wallets,
Credit/Debit Cards and even over-the-counter through UnionBank’s expansive
network of partner channels nationwide.
"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 that
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.
Through the new feature, UnionBank wants to level the playing field
for MSMEs by making the feature accessible to them, which was previously only
available to the bigger merchants as part of enterprise platforms that are too
technologically demanding and expensive for smaller players.
For more information about the company and this article,
please visit
www.unionbankph.com/msme/upay
