News in Brief

Organising for Change in the Philippines

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has reorganised to combine its cash department and its payment department.

In the case of the Philippines the goal is to accelerate a move to a ‘cash-lite’ society, but it represents a pragmatic approach to co-ordinating payment activity and, perhaps, addressing some of the friction and barriers that working in different silos can create. BSP wants the ecosystems of physical money and digital payments to be managed in one place to enable ‘sustained and inclusive economic growth’, according to its Governor, Benjamin Diokno.

The cash department is responsible for printing banknotes, manages currency retirement, mints coins, manages securities documents, refines gold, prints the national ID cards and services bank deposits and withdrawals in the greater Manila area, along with anti-counterfeiting operations.