BusinessMirror FROM FRUSTRATION TO FRICTIONLESS ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS
2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year 2021 Pro Patria Award PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY 2018 Data Champion
EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS
BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR
(2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS
A broader look at today’s business
www.businessmirror.com.ph
n
Sunday, November 9, 2025 Vol. 21 No. 32
P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 12 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
India’s UPI and the PHL’s QR Ph are about to change the way we pay
M
By Malou Talosig-Bartolome
formed India’s payments landscape by addressing critical challenges such as accessibility and interoperability,” NPCI International said in an exclusive email interview. “It removed barriers to digital payments through instant transfers that work seamlessly across platforms.” This model has helped formalize India’s economy, enabling direct benefit transfers, reducing leakages in welfare programs, and simplifying tax compliance. It’s also empowered small merchants and consumers by making digital payments intuitive and accessible.
UMBAI, India—Scroll through Reddit threads or Facebook rants, and you’ll find a familiar chorus: millennials and Gen Zs venting about “convenience” stores that don’t accept GCash or Maya, or the irony of paying “convenience fees” just to move money from their bank to an e-wallet. Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) feel it too—paying remittance charges to send money home, while their families shoulder transaction costs just to receive it. In India, these pain points have already been solved. Through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), users send money instantly, securely, and without fees—even in areas with no internet. With just a mobile phone and a QR code, millions of Indians— from city dwellers to sari-sari store owners—are part of a seamless digital economy. Now, India and the Philippines are working to link their payment systems—UPI and QR Ph—through a multilateral ini-
Project Nexus: A multilateral leap forward A GROCERY store in Mumbai, India displays signage for Paytm and BHIM UPI digital payment options. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI)—India’s public digital infrastructure for instant, zero-fee money transfers—has made even small merchants part of a seamless cashless economy. The Philippines is now exploring a similar path through Project Nexus, a multilateral initiative linking UPI with QR Ph for faster, cheaper cross-border payments. NEERAJ CHARURVEDI | DREAMSTIME.COM
tiative called Project Nexus, led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). A SIGNAGE promoting QR Ph digital payment is displayed at a cashier counter in a mall in Quezon City. ED DAVAD
A public infra that changed a nation
UPI isn’t just a fintech product—it’s a public digital infrastructure that
has redefined how India transacts. It allows instant bank-to-bank transfers using mobile numbers, QR codes, or aliases, eliminating the need for account details. It’s interoperable across banks and apps, and it’s free for users. “UPI has effectively trans-
THE Philippines is now actively working with India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand to link their instant payment systems through Project Nexus. Instead of building dozens of bilateral connections, each country connects once to the Nexus platform and gains access to all other members. The BIS Innovation Hub is facilitating this collaboration, with a live implementation targeted for 2026. In April 2025, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and other partners established a management entity to oversee the scheme. The benefits are far-reaching:
• For tourists: Indian visitors in the Philippines can scan QR Ph codes to pay, while Filipino travelers in India can use UPI to do the same. • For OFWs: Remittances will be faster and cheaper, with funds sent directly to a recipient’s bank or e-wallet in seconds. • For MSMEs: The system opens the cross-border payments market to more players, boosting economic integration and digital trade. NPCI International, the global arm of the National Payments Corporation of India, is helping other countries replicate UPI’s success. Its strategy has two pillars: building sovereign digital payment infrastructure and enabling crossborder interoperability. “We collaborate with countries to design and implement sovereign, real-time payment systems modeled on India’s UPI framework,” NPCI said. Countries like Namibia, Peru, and Trinidad & Tobago are already working with NPCI to build scalable, secure, and interoperable digital payment ecosystems. The second pillar—interoperability—focuses on enabling UPI acceptance for Indian travelers in eight countries: Singapore, UAE, Continued on A2
A solitary jewel: A week in Sibuyan T
By Rio Renato Constantino
HIS is the first thing I saw from the ship: a white veil draped over the earth’s sleeping head. Everything glowing under the dying afternoon light, even the fog. And where the mist stopped, the rest of the dreaming body looming lovely and clear. Green flanks, green foothills, the vegetation interrupted only near the bottom by a thin band of human habitation. From there the ocean, all the way to the horizon’s rim. The mountain is the legendary Mt. Guiting-Guiting. The island is Sibuyan, a place that’s also been called the Galapagos of Asia. Flung like a stray jewel into the deep waters of Romblon Province, it measures just over 445 square kilometers, an area smaller than the entirety of Metro Manila. Yet crammed into this narrow space are over 700 species of plants, 130 different kinds of birds, along with an untold number of various beetles, butterflies, and ants still undescribed by science. Not to mention the surrounding seas, which teem with the invisible tracks of migrating marine wildlife. It’s nature at its most prolific, a galaxy in miniature. I was a lucky guest of the Ingle Trust Foundation of Davao, an environmental organization based in Davao but with a long history
RIO CONSTANTINO and Medel Silvosa setting a camera trap NOEL CARL DELOS REYES
VIEW of Mt. Guiting-Guiting RIO CONSTANTINO
Xanthostemon plant NOEL CARL DELOS REYES
in Sibuyan. Foundation president Nina Ingle helped survey the island’s mammal fauna during the 1990s. More recently, the Ingle Trust was part of a project training local citizen scientists in the art of free diving. I say guest, but my visit did come with certain responsibilities. My job was to follow two of Ingle Trust’s field team, Medel Silvosa and Carl Delos Reyes, as they went about the island, and to write about what I saw. Sibuyan is beautiful, they said; we want your help so that others will know how beautiful it is too. Not that there was a lack of spectacular sights. Far away from
RIVER view of Mt. Guiting-Guiting NOEL CARL DELOS REYES
us, across a span of glassy water, as we disembarked at the pier, dozens of flying foxes were soaring into the air, their wings beating low and heavy against the evening sky. The morning after our arrival, my hosts suggested going on an improvised tour by tricycle. The island’s sole highway runs in a loose circle following the coast, passing through three municipalities along the way: Magdiwang, Cajidiocan, and San Fernando. Combined, they have a population of a little over 60,000. Despite the number, traffic is sparse. Most people go around in tricycles and on motorcycles. The road winds along thin stretches of coastal plain, which contain the bulk of the population, the flatlands gradually giving way to forested hills and overgrown cliffsides. Continued on A2
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 58.8880 n JAPAN 0.3847 n UK 77.3671 n HK 7.5737 n CHINA 8.2722 n SINGAPORE 45.1907 n AUSTRALIA 38.1418 n EU 68.0039 n KOREA 0.0406 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.7035 Source: BSP (November 7, 2025)