The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) explained the selection process for the financial service providers (FSPs) to conduct the digital disbursement for the second tranche of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP).

The FSPs have been identified through the technical assistance of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) having the expertise on digitization as well as enabling policies and regulatory environment for financial inclusion and digital payments. They are BSP-regulated financial institutions authorized to offer transaction accounts to the public.

In identifying the FSPs, BSP explained that primary considerations were given to the presence of payout partners to ensure ease and ability to cash out by beneficiaries balanced with other considerations such as: presence of any business model institutions, historical experience in commercial roll out, and type of cash out points that may contribute to ensuring liquidity or availability of cash.

Furthermore, BSP provided that allocation was straightforward for areas with only one FSP present while for areas with only electronic-money institutions (EMIs), selection was made based on historical experience in commercial roll out or significant dominance of pay out presence.

Also considered were the business model limitations such as “smart phone only” deployments and EMI official tie-ups with local government units. In areas where there are both bank/s and EMI/s, the bank with most payout presence was matched with the top EMI consistent with the abovementioned considerations.

The current arrangement will give the beneficiaries a transaction account which they can use to save, pay bills and receive any future money or assistance in an efficient manner rather than a one time transaction for disbursement. Other FSPs that cannot create restricted transaction account were not included.

Also, the FSPs will have to make sure liquidity is sufficient for cash out in the areas to which they have been assigned in.

The BSP-identified FSPs are GCash, PayMaya,  RCBC, Robinsons Bank, Starpay, and Unionbank.

While the Department wants to engage as many FSPs as possible, it also wants to adhere to the selection process determined by the experts in the industry. ###

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