benjamin e diokno : accelerating digital transformation in the covid - 19 era ; digital transformation in the financial services and navigating through the pandemic speech by mr benjamin e diokno, governor of bangko sentral ng pilipinas ( bsp, the central bank of the philippines ), at the escom webinar, 10 november 2020. * * * ladies and gentleman, good morning. as you know, the coronavirus pandemic has forced us to embrace the digital realm. and we can harness this to make sure internet access and mobile phone ownership do not only lead to better social connections and convenient shopping, but also welfare - enhancing financial services. even before the crisis, the bangko sentral ng pilipinas or bsp had already been pushing for the digital transformation in the country ’ s financial services because we believe that the promotion of financial technology and digitalization will lead us toward achieving financial inclusion. today, we continue to stand firm on this advocacy today, not only for financial inclusion, but for our survival and recovery. fortunately, the philippines was prepared when the pandemic hit us. this slide shows the strength of our macroeconomic fundamentals in 2019. two decades of sustained economic and structural reforms served us well and enabled us to build buffers and widen policy space. our gdp growth averaged 6. 4 percent in the last 10 years. the strong growth was achieved in an environment of generally stable inflation and was anchored on purposeful structural reforms. the country ’ s strong track record of prudent policymaking has likewise led to a robust external payments position, hefty international reserves, improved external debt metrics, and healthy public finances. at the same time, philippine banks continue to be sound, stable, and well - functioning based on all metrics. it is from this strong position that the bsp acted swiftly and decisively to inject liquidity into the system to calm the market. at the same time, it communicated its priorities and policies well. we reduced policy rate by a cumulative 175 bps — by 25 bps even before the pandemic became full - blown, followed by a series of three 50 bps cut in 4 months. we cut reserve requirements by 200 bps for universal and commercial banks and by 100 bps for thrift banks and rural and cooperative banks. we entered into a repurchase agreement with the national government through the bureau of the treasury ( btr ). we remit

, to be done digitally by 2023. with the pandemic, i am optimistic that this goal will be met even sooner. of course, this is consistent with my other vision of shifting from a cash - heavy to a cash - lite economy. indeed, the speed and breadth of digitalization are gaining momentum. and we want to push harder. on september 8, 2020, the bsp, together with the trust officers association of the philippines, launched digital pera, which stands for personal equity retirement account. digital pera utilizes a digital platform where investors can open, access, and invest 24 / 7 through their pera account anywhere in the world using their mobile gadgets. this breakthrough project is in addition to an array of digital - enabled investment outlets such as the unit investment trust funds and mutual funds, which are now available for retail clients. the bsp is also implementing a digital literacy program. this initiative is part of the bsp ’ s financial education advocacy, which aims to increase public trust and confidence in the digital finance ecosystem and encourage massive usage of digital financial services by consumers across all sectors. as we now steer the philippine economy back to its previous position, the entire government and the bsp are exerting enormous efforts to not only restore the economy and help the filipino people survive this crisis but for the philippines to be even better, stronger, more inclusive, 2 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches technologically prepared, and more competitive than before the pandemic. the bsp ’ s digital payments transformation roadmap for 2020 to 2023 sets out our initiatives and strategies for achieving an efficient, safe and inclusive payments ecosystem. it has two key strategic objectives. first, it aims to strengthen customers ’ preference for digital payments by converting 50 percent of the total volume of retail payments into digital form. in addition, it aims to expand the proportion of financially included to 70 percent of filipino adults. to help us assess how well our policy interventions contribute to the transformation into digital payments, the better than cash alliance or btca is helping us build a simulated model which will estimate the potential change in the level of e - payments volume and value driven by policies initiated by the bsp. the second objective is to encourage innovations which will boost real - time payments velocity. in particular, we intend to make available more innovative digital financial products and services. these services will be enabled by the national id system. it will also be supported by the availability of modern payment services that