DIGITAL PAYMENTS firm PayMaya Philippines, Inc. said 50% of online shopping transactions in the country are now paid via electronic payment systems.
Cashless modes of payment “have most likely reached a tipping point in 2020 where over 50% of online shopping transactions in the country are now paid via cashless means,” PayMaya said in an e-mailed statement over the weekend, citing data from Google, Temasek, Bain & Company, and Euromonitor.
According to the company’s founder and chief executive officer, Orlando B. Vea, PayMaya had processed more than P95 billion worth of online shopping transactions in 2020 alone.
In 2019, PayMaya said it had recorded more than P200 billion in gross transaction volume annually.
“The Philippines is on the cusp of an online shopping explosion in the next two years as fintech providers, digital players, businesses, and the government accelerate the pivot to digital, bolstered by the launch of the update e-Commerce Philippines Roadmap 2022 by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on Friday,” the digital payments firm said.
The Trade department is hoping to increase e-commerce enterprises from a base of 500,000 to 1 million by 2022.
PayMaya has said it expects the value of transactions on its platform to reach P1 trillion by 2023.
According to Mr. Vea, it is not only the large merchants that are going into the e-commerce activity, as small businesses are also “very much in play.”
“We really expect this sector to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years,” he added.
PayMaya is a subsidiary of Voyager Innovations, Inc., the digital arm of PLDT, Inc.
Voyager’s portfolio, aside from the PayMaya e-wallet and app for consumers, includes PayMaya Enterprise for end-to-end merchant-acquiring solutions and Smart Padala, which has over 37,000 partner agent touchpoints nationwide.
Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin