What is QR Ph?
QR Ph is the national interoperable QR code standard, mandated by the BSP for banks and e-money issuers. Payments settle through InstaPay, and the BSP counted 2.47 billion QR Ph payments in 2025, more than card payments by volume.
In detail
QR Ph is the national interoperable QR code standard of the Philippines, mandated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for banks and e-money issuers. Every participant must accept the national code, so a GCash user can pay a merchant whose QR comes from Maya or a bank.
How it works
QR Ph is the merchant face of InstaPay, the real-time transfer rail for payments of up to PHP 50,000. The shopper scans the code in their wallet or banking app, and the payment settles instantly.
Scale
The BSP counted 2.47 billion QR Ph payments worth PHP 1.16 trillion and 2.29 million registered merchant IDs in 2025. QR Ph overtook debit and credit card transactions by number for the first time. Payments of up to PHP 500 are free for merchants under a 2022 industry agreement. Some installment providers now let shoppers pay with their credit line through QR Ph in stores.
What it means for payment operators
For operators serving Filipino merchants, QR Ph is the common acceptance method across wallets and banks. A local provider that generates dynamic codes per order and confirms payments automatically keeps reconciliation simple, and adds one method that reaches nearly every digital payer in the country.