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Less fees? BSP's new circular changes electronic payments in 2026

Sep 1, 2026 · 4 min readBy KasKasan Buddies

BSP Circular No. 1238 introduces new pricing rules for electronic fund transfers and requires zero fees for payments received by qualifying micro-merchants.

  • The way you pay for your taho, your sari-sari store run, and your neighbor's online shop just changed — officially, and by law.
  • The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas signed BSP Circular No. 1238 Series of 2026 on June 17 — new rules requiring all BSP-supervised financial institutions to adopt "reasonable and fair market-based" pricing for person-to-person electronic fund transfers, while also mandating zero fees for small merchant payments.
  • This is one of the most directly consumer-relevant regulatory moves of 2026. Here is the full breakdown.

BSP Circular No. 1238 introduces new pricing rules for electronic fund transfers and requires zero fees for payments received by qualifying micro-merchants.

  • The way you pay for your taho, your sari-sari store run, and your neighbor's online shop just changed — officially, and by law.
  • The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas signed BSP Circular No. 1238 Series of 2026 on June 17 — new rules requiring all BSP-supervised financial institutions to adopt "reasonable and fair market-based" pricing for person-to-person electronic fund transfers, while also mandating zero fees for small merchant payments.
  • This is one of the most directly consumer-relevant regulatory moves of 2026. Here is the full breakdown.

The way you pay for your taho, your sari-sari store run, and your neighbor's online shop just changed — officially, and by law.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas signed BSP Circular No. 1238 Series of 2026 on June 17 — new rules requiring all BSP-supervised financial institutions to adopt "reasonable and fair market-based" pricing for person-to-person electronic fund transfers, while also mandating zero fees for small merchant payments.

This is one of the most directly consumer-relevant regulatory moves of 2026. Here is the full breakdown.

What BSP Circular No. 1238 actually does:

The circular mandates that fees charged for off-us person-to-person transfers — those where the sender and receiver have accounts with different financial institutions — "should not materially differ" from those charged for on-us transactions, where both accounts are with the same bank.

In plain terms: your bank can no longer charge you significantly more just because you are sending to a different bank. The fee gap between "same bank" and "different bank" transfers must now be minimal and justified by actual cost data.

Payment system operators with merchant acquisition licenses must also adopt a "reasonable, transparent, market-based" pricing mechanism for the fees they charge merchants, supported by a cost analysis.

The biggest win — zero fees for small merchants:

The BSP defines "micro-merchants" as businesses with monthly gross receipts not exceeding ₱250,000. Payments to these merchants via electronic fund transfer must now be provided at zero cost.

Your neighborhood tindahan. Your online selling Buddy with a small shop. The karinderya owner with a QR code. Every micro-merchant earning ₱250,000 or less per month — which covers the vast majority of small Filipino businesses — must now receive digital payments without being charged a merchant fee.

This removes one of the biggest barriers to cashless adoption for small businesses: the cost of accepting digital payments.

For personal transactions, BSP defines these as fund transfers between individuals for personal, family, or household purposes — typically not exceeding ten transactions per week. Once this threshold is exceeded, fees may apply.

The trade-off you need to know:

With the issuance of Circular No. 1238, BSP Memorandum No. M-2026-025 simultaneously lifted the moratorium on the increase in transfer fees for InstaPay and PESONet transactions — a moratorium that had been in place since 2021 to encourage the shift to cashless payments.

This is the important nuance: the 2021 fee freeze is now gone. Banks and payment operators are no longer prohibited from raising their transfer fees — but they must now justify those fees with actual cost data, keep them "reasonable," and cannot charge more for cross-bank transfers than for same-bank transfers. The zero-fee mandate for micro-merchant payments and the personal transaction threshold also serve as a floor of protection for consumers.

The lifting of the moratorium is grounded in the implementation of zero fees for small merchant payments and the establishment of a pricing structure for P2P electronic fund transfers under the circular, which aims to reduce costs across the board.

What this means in practice for KKBuddies:

If you send money regularly to a different bank — from your GoTyme to a BDO account, or from GCash to Maya — the gap in fees between banks should narrow. Banks that currently charge more for cross-bank transfers now need to justify that difference with actual cost data submitted to the BSP.

If you run a small online business or sell at the palengke, this circular is a direct financial benefit. Your customers can now pay you digitally without the merchant fee eating into your margins — as long as your monthly gross receipts stay under ₱250,000.

If you make fewer than 10 P2P transfers per week for personal use — daily expenses, splitting bills, sending to family — those transfers should fall under the protected personal transaction threshold.

Watch your banking app announcements in the coming weeks. With the moratorium lifted, individual institutions may adjust their fee structures — upward or downward — as they align with the new circular's requirements.