##ted dividends amounting to ₱20 billion to support the national government ’ s programs, even if the bsp is no longer required under our new charter to remit cash dividends to it. moreover, we expanded the set of eligible instruments as compliance with the bsp ’ s reserve requirement to include new loans to micro, small, and medium and critically impacted large enterprises that do not belong to conglomerates. we also issued time - bound and targeted regulatory and operational relief measures to encourage bsp - supervised financial institutions to continue their support to the economy, 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches particularly the micro, small, and medium enterpresis. these measures include extension of financial relief to borrowers, incentivized lending, promotion of continued access to financial services, support for continued financial services delivery, and support for sufficient level of domestic liquidity and economic activity. in sum, we have injected approximately p1. 9 trillion pesos ( approximately $ us 39. 2 billion ) in liquidity into the financial system, equivalent to 9. 6 percent of gdp. indeed, the pandemic has given us an opportunity to further accelerate the digital transformation of the financial services sector. in fact, we have encouraged the use of electronic payments to enhance the speed, convenience, and affordability of financial transactions. particularly, pesonet — as a viable alternative to checks and recurring bulk payments ; and instapay — as a substitute for cash. the existence of the pesonet and instapay was crucial in facilitating two key milestone initiatives of the national retail payment system : the government e - payments ( “ egov pay ” ) facility via pesonet ; and the national quick response code standard ( “ qr ph ” ) via instapay. as a result of the pandemic and the consequent lockdowns, more consumers shifted from cash payments to digital payments. the evidence is crystal clear : the use of pesonet and instapay zoomed exponentially. for the first eight months of 2020, the value of instapay rose almost 400 percent, while that of pesonet jumped 100 percent year - on - year. by volume of transactions, instapay and pesonet soared by 624 percent and 130 percent, respectively. this is truly excellent news. as governor of the bsp, one of my personal goals is to have not less than 50 percent of transactions, by volume and value

the eba consultation paper. i am arguing that the bsa needs to take this and other sources of heterogeneity into account. similar considerations apply to leverage. italian banks have lower leverage than their international competitors, partly because of their relatively small volume of business in derivatives. arguably, their operational risks are also comparatively low : italian banks have not been involved in any of the serious episodes of malpractice or the market - rigging schemes that have damaged the reputation and of some foreign intermediaries and cost them expensive legal settlements. these and other sources of heterogeneity, which tend to bias international comparisons against italian banks, have been documented by the bank of italy in its financial stability report as well as by market analysis. they will have to be duly taken into account in the comprehensive assessment. these arguments are intended simply to support a fair approach to the forthcoming bsa ; they are not meant to downplay the risks that the italian banking system faces. while italian banks have demonstrated good resilience overall, thanks to their sound fundamentals at the outset of the financial crisis, the sovereign crisis and two long and deep recessions have put their balance sheets under severe stress. npls have been rising steadily since 2008, depressing profitability and raising concerns over provisioning among analysts and market operators. and even though i have set out the reasons why we need to quickly enhance comparability among european banks, we take these concerns seriously. indeed, we have taken decisive action to address these risks, and we are confident that this will improve the outlook for the italian credit market. apart from episodes of malfeasance, which are relevant but circumscribed, serious difficulties mainly concern a handful of medium - sized and small banking groups. this class of banks has been particularly hard - hit by the recession, owing among other things to lesser diversification of risks and revenues. additional challenges have sometimes been raised by weak ownership and corporate governance structures, which may complicate capital strengthening and adaptation of business models. intense supervisory actions have been bis central bankers ’ speeches – and continue to be – taken on these banks. in some instances special administration has been necessary to allow a clear recovery and return rapidly to ordinary management. the bank of italy regularly reviews banks ’ asset quality as part of its standard supervisory activity, assessing the risk exposure of each institution. the quality of banks ’ assets is assessed continuously off - site, on the basis of detailed monthly supervisory reports.