NEWS | Digital payments made up 64.7 percent of all retail transactions in the Philippines last year, up from 57.4 percent in 2024. For the first time, QR Ph payments alone overtook debit and credit cards combined, with 2.47 billion transactions worth 1.16 trillion pesos processed through QR codes in 2025. The figures come from the central bank's latest report on the state of digital payments in the country.
The growth came from more people actually using digital payments, not just having access to them. Digital payment accounts jumped 69.4 percent, and the number of merchant locations accepting digital payments grew by 36.3 percent. Officials point to interoperability as the biggest driver, meaning a single QR code now works across different banks and e-wallets like GCash, Maya, and traditional bank apps, instead of forcing people to juggle separate systems.
BMN sees this as more than a milestone number. It marks a real behavior shift, cash used to be the default and digital payment was the alternative, now that relationship has flipped for the average Filipino transaction.
That shift raises the harder question ahead. The country already passed its original target years early and is now chasing a 70 percent goal by 2028, but growth has slowed to single digits for two years straight, meaning the easy adoption wins may already be behind us and the next stretch could be tougher.
So here is what is actually at stake. If the fastest growth phase is over, what does it take to bring the remaining third of transactions still stuck on cash into the digital system?
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