BSP presses GCash, Maya on P10 transfer fees: Explain!

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has spent July dismantling the fee barriers that banks once placed between their apps.

The campaign has worked surprisingly well. As of Friday, July 17, at least 14 universal and commercial banks were offering free InstaPay transfers, including BDO, BPI, Metrobank, Landbank, UnionBank, and RCBC. The top biggest banks already account for about 90% of transaction volume.

Now comes the elephants still standing in the payments room: GCash and Maya.

The country’s two biggest e-wallet brands continue to charge P10 for InstaPay transfers to other banks and wallets, even as transfers within their respective ecosystems (e.g. GCash-to-GCash or Maya-to-Maya) remain free.

To be fair, both have already given customers a small win. GCash cut its fee from P15 to P10 effective July 4, while Maya made the same reduction effective July 6.