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Coronavirus: how cash-mad Philippines learned to love digital money thanks to Covid-19
- Online payments have been slow to take off in the Philippines, where cash has long been king
- With quarantine measures making trips to far off banks problematic, more people are turning to the newly digital services of their local sari-sari stores
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With her neighbourhood south of Manila locked down due to the coronavirus, Dolly Pelle had been planning to close her sari-sari convenience store – until customers convinced her they couldn’t do without her.
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Pelle’s store is one of a handful of similar shops all on the same street, but her’s has a crucial difference: it is the only one able to process local remittances.
In the past four years in the Philippines, some 50,000 sari-sari stores – small shops selling sundries and operating out of people’s homes – have been transformed into digital payment hubs through partnerships with the payment aggregator companies Posible, a local firm, and True Money, based in Thailand. Using point-of-sale devices distributed by the aggregators, the sari-sari stores are able to process financial services like bill payments, e-wallet top-ups and local remittances.
Offering such services has made these stores ever more vital parts of their communities and their importance has been magnified by quarantine measures that are encouraging Filipinos to stay close to home.
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“In our place, you would need to take two trips – a tricycle and a jeepney ride – to get to the nearest bank,” Pelle said. “With the quarantine in effect, those in our neighbourhood are left with no option but to process remittances and e-money cash-ins with me.”
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