Coronavirus: How Cash-Mad Philippines Learned to Love Digital Money Thanks to COVID-19

Source: South China Morning Post

In the past four years in the Philippines, some 50,000 sari-sari stores – small shops selling sundries and operating out of people’s homes – have been transformed into digital payment hubs through partnerships with the payment aggregator companies Posible, a local firm, and True Money, based in Thailand. Using point-of-sale devices distributed by the aggregators, the sari-sari stores are able to process financial services like bill payments, e-wallet top-ups and local remittances.

Offering such services has made these stores ever more vital parts of their communities and their importance has been magnified by quarantine measures that are encouraging Filipinos to stay close to home.