LEADING digital wallet wallet provider GCash and Maya announced that they are looking at the possible effects of waiving fees on micropayment on their balance sheet.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) had earlier asked that the fees be removed for small-value transactions, to help further promote the use of digital payments.

"This is a big change so let's give them time to look into that. Hopefully they come around and respond positively to the call of [BSP] Governor [Eli Remolona Jr.]," BSP deputy governor for payments and currency management sector Mamerto Tangonan said.

Likewise Tangonan said that the banks have already responded to their call to waive fees  for micropayments, or those transactions amounting to PHP1,000 and below. 

"Let's face it, our countrymen and people, if there are fees, it presents a barrier or some reluctance to pay," Tangonan said. 

According to the government they want to ensure that majority of the people will be shifting to digital payments.

"Actually we tried to have some computation on that. We are studying that. We already have the numbers, we just need to sort it out internally," Maya head of acceptance and SME Richard Labitag said.

For their part, GCash head of public sector and partnerships Cathlyn Pavia explained that since theirs is a platform that enables multiple financial services, a number of these come from other financial institutions as well. 

"So with that, we need to consider outside of the operation cost that we have. It's also fees that we also incur through the connections with our other partners," she said.