The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is looking to increase the P50,000 limit per transaction under the InstaPay electronic fund transfer payment system.

BSP assistant governor Redentor “Dennis” Bancod, the P50,000 limit per transaction was made due to the increasing demand from the public.

Bancod said the set limit also aim to keep transactions below the radar of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), as processing times for those above the threshold could take longer.

But, the BSP is studying the implications of increasing that amount to a certain level.

“We know that in the other jurisdictions like Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, they already increased their limits on real-time instant payments, so in our case, we’re also studying that,” he added.

Launched in 2018, InstaPay allows individuals, businesses, and government institutions to send and receive funds or make payments in real time of up to P50,000 per transaction.

Bancod said the central bank is also conducting a similar concurrent study involving another use case of InstaPay, which will be for transactions made between businesses.

“We recognize that most of these requests are actually for a business type of payment, like for SMEs (small and medium enterprises), commercial supply payments, and so on, so forth,” Bancod said.

“The automated clearing house of InstaPay under PPMI (Philippine Payments Management Inc.) is actually already working towards launching a B2B use case, and in that case, it will allow a bigger limit as long as the originator is a business corporation,” he added.