The ICT Office of the Department of Science and Technology (ICTO-DOST) revealed plans to roll out PhPay, an online e-payment system that aims to give citizens a more convenient, faster and more transparent way of completing government transactions.

According to Jops Josef, Component Team Lead for Systems Integration of the Integrated Government Philippines project (iGovPhil), through the system, citizens availing services from a government agency may pay through payment channels which include credit cards, online banking, bank and non-bank over-the-counter payments, mobile banking, and rural banks among others. This will be possible through private payment aggregator companies that will be part of PhPay.

“When we look at the whole government payment process, each agency is required to deposit payments to the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) at the end of each transaction day. Through PhPay, we’ve made it simpler by removing this process for the agency and let the payment go directly to the BTr,” Josef said.

He added that agencies will greatly benefit from PhPay as they would no longer need to talk to the different companies offering online payments and paying a set-up fee for each one. By simply enlisting their services on PhPay, they can leverage on the diverse set of payment channels and allow citizens to choose their preferred channel.

While convenience derived from PhPay comes at cost of Php 20-40 (US$ .45-.90) per transaction, Josef said they expect this figure to fall further as they meet with various stakeholders to finalise engagement terms with the payment aggregators.

At present, the ICTO-DOST is selecting agencies to be part of pilot implementation which they hope to roll out by March 2014.