Digital payments passed half of retail volume in 2023 — and that still does not tell you the cash share
BSP reports that 57.4% of retail payment volume was digital in 2024, up from 1% in 2013. The other 42.6% is labelled non-digital, not cash, and cheques sit inside it. Meanwhile currency in circulation is 14.85% of M2, the highest of the nine Asian markets compared here.
Has digital payment replaced cash in the Philippines?
It has taken over half of retail payment volume, but that is a different statement. BSP reports the digital share of retail payment volume at 57.4% in 2024, against 1% in 2013 (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas).
Has digital payment replaced cash in the Philippines?
Digital share of retail payment volume
Shared linear scale from zero. Selected entries from the table below. Its dates, units, definitions and limitations still apply.
| Year | Digital share of retail payment volume |
|---|---|
| 2013 | 1% |
| 2018 | 10% |
| 2019 | 14% |
| 2020 | 20.1% |
| 2021 | 30.3% |
| 2022 | 42.1% |
| 2023 | 52.8% |
| 2024 | 57.4% |
By value the 2024 share was 59.0%, against 55.3% in 2023.
This is a digital share, not a cash share, and the difference matters. BSP presents retail payments as a two-column split of digital and non-digital volume, and does not itemise what the non-digital column contains. Cheques are part of it. So subtracting 57.4% from 100 gives 42.6% as an upper bound on the share of payments made in cash — not the cash share itself. This note does not present that subtraction as a cash figure, and no consultancy estimate has been substituted for the missing statistic. Of the nine markets compared here, only Thailand, Taiwan and Japan publish a genuine cash share.
The cash stock did not shrink
Currency in circulation rose over the same period. It was P582,533 million at the end of 2009 and P2,723,394 million at the end of 2024, with a share of M2 of 14.85%.
| End of period | Currency in circulation (P m) | M2 (P m) | Cash ÷ M2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| December 2009 | 582,533 | 3,880,968 | 15.01% |
| December 2014 | 929,502 | 7,396,350 | 12.57% |
| December 2019 | 1,679,049 | 12,293,184 | 13.66% |
| December 2024 | 2,723,394 | 18,334,242 | 14.85% |
| August 2026 | 2,663,195 | — | — |
The path is not a straight line. The share fell from 15.01% in 2009 to 12.57% in 2014, then climbed back. After fifteen years, and after digital payments went from 1% of retail volume to 57.4%, the cash share of M2 is close to where it began.
That is the point worth holding onto. A payment method can be displaced at the till while the stock of cash outside the banks stays roughly constant relative to the money supply, because the two measure different things: one counts transactions, the other counts a balance.
Does every market look like this?
No. This is the most interesting result of the comparison.
| Market | Dec 2009 | Dec 2019 | Dec 2024 | Concept |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taiwan | 3.12% | 4.61% | 5.17% | held by public |
| Hong Kong | 5.82% | 7.12% | 7.25% | in circulation |
| Malaysia | — | 5.85% | 6.89% | in circulation |
| Singapore | — | — | 8.06% | in circulation |
| Thailand | 9.85% | 9.29% | 10.10% | in circulation |
| Japan | 11.19% | 11.32% | 10.23% | in circulation |
| Vietnam | 14.01% | 11.33% | 9.10% | outside banks |
| Philippines | 15.01% | 13.66% | 14.85% | in circulation |
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia rose. Vietnam fell from 14.01% to 9.10% and Japan from 11.19% to 10.23%; Japan’s banknote stock itself peaked in December 2024 and has fallen since. The Philippines is the highest in the set and roughly flat over fifteen years, which is a third pattern again.
The concept used here is Currency in Circulation from the Central Bank Survey, which includes cash held by banks. BSP also publishes Currency Outside Depository Corporations, a smaller figure — P2,366,816 million at end-2024 — and the two are not interchangeable. In the table above, Taiwan and Vietnam use the public-holdings concept while the other seven use the in-circulation concept, so the table can be read for direction but not for level. The August 2026 currency reading is flagged preliminary by BSP, and this site's M2 series for the Philippines ends in July 2026.
Differences between markets track the settings in which cash is used: how far payment infrastructure reaches, the size of the informal sector, remittance flows arriving in cash, and how large-denomination notes are issued. This paragraph interprets the differences; the figures in the tables are observations from published statistics.
What to check when reading these numbers
Start with what the statistic actually counts. A digital share and a cash share are not complements of each other unless the residual contains only cash, and in the Philippine series it does not.
Then check the concept on the stock side. “Currency in circulation” and “currency outside depository corporations” are different numbers, separated by the cash sitting in banks. The tables label each row for that reason.
Finally, do not read cash ÷ M2 as something else. It is the mathematical share of cash within a monetary aggregate. It is not a measure of “true inflation” and it is not a measure of the informal economy. A high share does not by itself mean a large informal sector.
Questions & answers
What share of Philippine payments is made in cash?
No official statistic answers that. BSP publishes the digital share of retail payment volume — 57.4% in 2024 — and labels the remainder non-digital, without itemising it. Cheques are inside that remainder, so 42.6% is an upper bound on the cash share, not the cash share.
How much cash is in circulation in the Philippines?
P2,723,394 million at the end of 2024 on the Central Bank Survey concept, up from P582,533 million at the end of 2009. The August 2026 reading is P2,663,195 million, which BSP flags as preliminary.
Why is the cash-to-M2 share the highest in this comparison?
At 14.85% at the end of 2024 it is the highest of the nine markets here, ahead of Vietnam at 9.10% and Japan at 10.23%. The ratio is the mathematical share of cash within a monetary aggregate; it is not a measure of true inflation and not a measure of the informal economy.
Has the Philippine share been rising?
Not in a straight line. It was 15.01% at the end of 2009, fell to 12.57% in 2014, and was 13.66% in 2019 and 14.85% in 2024. It is close to where it started fifteen years earlier.