Digital Payments & Fintech · Philippines
Digital Payments & Fintech - Philippines
The Philippines has a clear, mature licensing and registration regime for digital payments and fintech, anchored by the BSP. The National Payment Systems Act requires all operators of payment systems to register with the BSP, e-money issuers must be separately licensed, and an Open Finance framework plus the InstaPay/PESONet instant-payment rails are operational. Consumer credit products such as BNPL are licensed either by the BSP (if bank/quasi-bank backed) or the SEC (as financing/lending companies).
Under the National Payment Systems Act (RA 11127) and Circular No. 1049, all Operators of Payment Systems (OPS) must register with the BSP and obtain a Certificate of Registration; this extends even to foreign providers serving Philippine customers.
EMIs are licensed by the BSP under Sec. 702 of the Manual of Regulations and Circular No. 1166 (2023), with capitalization tiers of PHP 100M (small) and PHP 200M (large); the BSP lifted its moratorium on new non-bank EMI licenses effective 16 December 2024.
BSP Circular No. 1122 (2021) established a consent-driven Open Finance Framework covering banks, e-money issuers and other institutions, supported by an Open Finance Roadmap (2021-2024), regulatory sandbox and a live pilot for API-based data sharing.
Under the National Retail Payment System, InstaPay provides 24/7 real-time credit-push transfers (up to PHP 100,000 per transaction following recent increases) and PESONet provides batch clearing with no cap; both are BSP-governed Automated Clearing Houses with combined volume of about PHP 11.1 trillion in H1 2025.
BNPL providers must be licensed: if structured as a financing or lending company they register with the SEC under RA 9474 / RA 8556 (with a moratorium on new online lending platforms since 2 November 2021); BSP-supervised banks/quasi-banks offer it under BSP rules.
Under BSP Circular No. 1133 (2021), implemented via SEC Circular No. 3 (2022), financing and lending companies face a ceiling of 6% per month nominal interest (0.2% per day) on covered loans of PHP 10,000 and below, applying to many digital lending and BNPL products.
Machine-assisted translation · verified 5/23/2026 · orientation, not legal advice. English version →