By Victoria “NIKE” De Dios
With 2 more days to go to register the sim card or lose signal, FinTech Alliance Philippines founding chairman Lito Villanueva appealed to mobile phone users in the country to heed the deadline for the SIM card registration set by the government.
“We urge mobile phone users to register their SIM cards immediately and comply with the nationwide Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Act (RA 11934), before all unregistered and existing SIM cards are automatically deactivated after April 26, 2023”, he said in the statement sent to THEPHILBIZNEWS.
“You don’t want to lose access to your e-wallets and other mobile financial apps knowing the value of their convenience in your day-to-day life”, he noted.
The fintech industry greatly encourages everyone’s adherence to this mandate as unregistered SIM card users may hinder digital payment processes, electronic transactions, and one-time-pin authorizations. With more registered SIM card users, we can continue to onboard more and more unbanked Filipinos into the financial ecosystem with ease and without interruption.
“Under this law, we aim to dramatically reduce cases of mule accounts, bots, and fraudulent transactions. This will improve the security, safety, and trust among digital users, Villanueva added.
As of April 20, 2023, a total of 76,927,923 subscribers have registered their SIMs, equivalent to around 45 percent of the 168 million subscriber base nationwide.
Based on telcos’ estimate, a huge portion of the 168 million subscriber base are “disposable” SIMs, which are used temporarily.
“Their actual estimate is close to 100 million active SIMs. If we use that figure as basis, then we have 78 to 79 million registered SIMs. The registration rate is hitting almost 80 percent,” said Secretary Ivan Uy of the Department of Information and Communications Tecnology.
Fintech Alliance.ph is the Philippines’ largest assiciation of fintech startups and unicorns generating over 90 percent of digital financial transactions in the country today.