Visa Philippines Head of Product Ezer Escolar, Visa Head of Product, Regional Southeast Asia Poojyata Katar, Vietcombank Deputy Director of Retail Product Department Nguyen Hong Thanh, Starbucks Vietnam Head of Business Development and Marketing Nguyen Bao Tram, Google Payments Strategic Partnerships Lead for Asia Pacific TG Ramakrishnan, and Visa Head of Product for Vietnam and Laos Kelvin Utomo.
Visa is stepping up efforts to empower banks, merchants, and consumers in the Philippines to adopt mobile payment platforms such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay—collectively known as xPays.
At an enablement workshop, Visa partnered with Google Southeast Asia, Vietcombank, and Starbucks Vietnam to share insights and best practices on how local banks can effectively integrate, launch, and scale xPay services in the Filipino market.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has clarified that xPays are considered technology service providers, not operators of payment systems, meaning they cannot hold funds directly. Instead, these wallets must be linked to users’ credit, debit, or e-money accounts to function.
Once a Visa card is added to a digital wallet, consumers can pay in-store, online, or through apps without using the physical card. Each transaction is protected by Visa’s security technology, offering both convenience and peace of mind.
Google Payments Strategic Partnerships Lead for Asia Pacific TG Ramakrishnan discusses how Google Wallet enables enrollment of various physical cards digitally, making payments seamless and secure.
Across Southeast Asia—including Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand—Visa has already enabled tokenized payments through xPays, where sensitive card numbers are replaced with secure digital tokens. These tokens, coupled with dynamic cryptograms, ensure that real account details are never exposed to merchants, reducing fraud risks.
Globally, Visa has issued over 10 billion tokens as of 2024, with more than 1.5 million e-commerce merchants accepting tokenized transactions daily. In Asia Pacific alone, Visa’s Token Service contributed to a US$2 billion uplift for merchants in 2023 while cutting payment fraud by 58 percent.
The workshop featured insights from Google Payments’ TG Ramakrishnan, Vietcombank’s Nguyen Hong Thanh, and Starbucks Vietnam’s Nguyen Bao Tram, highlighting the business opportunities xPays bring for issuers and merchants.
“Digital wallets like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay amplify the power of Visa by delivering secure, seamless, and innovative payment experiences for consumers, businesses, and our banking partners,” said Jeffrey Navarro, Visa Country Manager for the Philippines. “As a trusted global partner, Visa is proud to support the Philippines’ financial inclusion goals by helping Filipinos pay and be paid with confidence.”
Vietcombank Deputy Director of Retail Product Department Nguyen Hong Tanh shares how the xPays increased transaction volume and average number of transactions for the bank’s cardholders.
The adoption of xPays is expected to boost both digital and financial inclusion in the Philippines, especially as more foreign travelers prefer cashless payments. A recent Visa study shows that 97 percent of Asia Pacific travelers carry cards, while only 17 percent bring foreign currency. In contrast, 44 percent of travelers in the Philippines have faced payment issues, mainly due to merchant non-acceptance.
According to the BSP, digital retail payments in the country now account for 57.4 percent of total transaction volume—already surpassing its 2024 target under the Philippine Development Plan and well on track to meet the 70 percent goal by 2028.