It is a good thing that the country had been gradually embracing financial technology even before the pandemic hit. For me, it prepared us for the worst. In 2020, the volume of PESONet transfers surged to 15.3 million, up by 376 percent year-onyear.
On the other hand, the value of PESONet transactions rose by 188 percent, year-on-year, to reach nearly 951.6 billion pesos—equivalent to about 5.3 percent of the country’s GDP. In the same period, the number of payments made through InstaPay reached 86.7 million, up by 459 percent year-on-year. Said transactions were valued at 463.4 billion pesos, which was a 340-percent increase year-on-year.