To effectively monitor agent networks, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is targeting to launch the Agent Registry System (ARS) in the last quarter of 2024 after successfully testing its functionalities with select BSP supervised financial institutions (BSFIs) to “enhance user experience”.

The BSP said that last year, it conducted extensive tests of the ARS and by the end of 2023, was consulting BSFIs of its proposal to institutionalize the Agent Registry Report. The report is expected to be issued this year with the ARS.

The country’s agent networks include cash agents, electronic money or e-money agents, remittance sub-agents, and service points. These are all low-cost, “ubiquitous touchpoints for financial transactions.”

“The BSP exposed to the industry the proposed policy to institutionalize the Agent Registry Report, which is targeted for issuance in 2024, alongside the full launch of the ARS,” said the BSP.

With technical support from the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), the BSP was able to develop the ARS as a regulatory technology solution.

Last December, when the BSP announced it was developing the ARS, the proposal is to streamline the report submission of banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) via the Agent Registry Report.

This report is aimed at building and updating information on agents and service points in the ARS.

The BSFIs covered by the draft circular issued last year are banks and NBFIs with active cash and e-money agents.

These banks and NBFIs are required to submit the report with detailed information on the agents and service points “in the prescribed form, mode, and manner.”

Once the circular is approved, banks and NBFIs will be required to submit a baseline report which contains an “exhaustive list with the requisite information of the covered bank’s active agents and service points” as of June 30, 2024.

The quarterly Agent Registry Report will be submitted by Dec. 31, 2024. From then on, a quarterly report will be submitted to the BSP.

Based on the draft circular, an agent is a third-party entity contracted by the principal BSFI to provide services to its clients. An agent is considered active when its contract with the principal BSFI is valid and in force as of the reference reporting period, said the BSP.

Meanwhile, a service point refers to a specific physical touch point where agent services are provided to the clients of the BSFIs as per the agency contract between the agent and principal BSFIs. The central bank said a service point is considered active when its contract with the agent is valid and in force as of the reference reporting period.

BSP’s latest statistics showed that e-wallet accounts expanded by 52.8 percent in 2023 to 393.6 million from 257.5 million in 2022.

E-money transaction volume also grew by 40.2 percent to 10.6 billion in 2023, from 7.6 billion in 2022.

By end-2023, there are 72 e-money issuers in the Philippines, of which 28 are banks and 44 are NBFIs.