{"id":735126,"date":"2026-08-12T01:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T01:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/735126\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T01:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T01:42:09","slug":"manila-bulletin-visa-umsi-turn-smartphones-into-card-readers-to-drive-philippines-cashless-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/735126\/","title":{"rendered":"Manila Bulletin &#8211; Visa, UMSI turn smartphones into card readers to drive Philippines cashless shift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                    Published\u00a0Aug 12, 2026 12:37 am<br \/>\n                                            \u00a0|\u00a0<br \/>\n                        Updated\u00a0Aug 12, 2026 06:40 am\n                                    <\/p>\n<p>Global digital payments firm Visa and USSC Money Services, Inc. (UMSI) have launched U Accept, a payment solution that turns smartphones into point-of-sale (POS) terminals, allowing small enterprises to accept e-payments without investing in traditional, often costly, POS hardware.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUMSI has launched U Accept, an innovation powered by Visa that transforms a smartphone into a digital payment acceptance tool, enabling micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the Philippines to receive card and other contactless payment methods,\u201d Visa wrote in an Aug. 11 statement.<\/p>\n<p>This initiative tackles a critical segment of the Philippine economy, where MSMEs comprise more than \u201c99 percent of all business enterprises and generate 67 percent of total employment in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even with their vital role, high upfront hardware costs and lengthy onboarding processes have traditionally hindered these businesses from adopting e-payments.<\/p>\n<p>Integrating U Accept as a key feature of UMSI\u2019s uGrow app seeks to remove these barriers and help MSMEs \u201cparticipate more fully in the digital economy.\u201d UMSI is an affiliate of homegrown Universal Storefront Corp. (USSC).<\/p>\n<p>According to Visa\u2019s research, more than 83 percent of businesses reported an \u201cincrease in turnover after accepting card payments and 41 percent said customers spent more when they used cards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Among those who do not currently accept cards, 67 percent stated they would adopt a solution if given proper support. U Accept provides this support by allowing owners to activate the feature to accept contactless payments and \u201cpay-by-link,\u201d making digital acceptance inclusive without the need for additional hardware.<\/p>\n<p>Functionally, the system allows MSME users to send digital receipts via email, monitor sales, and manage inventory. A notable feature for business money supply is that the app allows for \u201cnear-real time settlement to users\u2019 U Visa Prepaid Card.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Visa, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) backs this initiative. \u201cThis marks an important step towards democratizing digital payments acceptance, with more Filipino MSMEs set to benefit from improving access to payment innovations,\u201d BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto E. Tangonan said.<\/p>\n<p>Jeffrey Navarro, Visa Philippines Country Manager, added that the collaboration is a \u201cgame-changer,\u201d putting innovation \u201cwithin reach of every Filipino entrepreneur.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Visa said the launch builds on the partnership in 2025 that introduced Visa Direct to enhance cross-border payment services.<\/p>\n<p>UMSI President and CEO Jose Xavier Gonzales said that the new tool specifically serves the unbanked, helping them \u201cshift seamlessly to digital, cashless transactions\u201d across both urban centers and remote rural areas. (Derco Rosal)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published\u00a0Aug 12, 2026 12:37 am \u00a0|\u00a0 Updated\u00a0Aug 12, 2026 06:40 am Global digital payments firm Visa and USSC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[57717,49032,72039,17384,2306,10784,57553,231477,2334,86,1850,163653,56,242988,54,55,20224],"class_list":["post-735126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-card","tag-cashless","tag-drive","tag-into","tag-mobile","tag-philippines","tag-readers","tag-shift","tag-smartphones","tag-technology","tag-to","tag-turn","tag-uk","tag-umsi","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-visa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}