State-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) and digital payments leader Visa launched on Tuesday a new Government Purchase Card (GPC) to provide government agencies with a more transparent, seamless and efficient payment solution to manage procurement services.
In a briefing at the LandBank office in Manila, LandBank Executive Vice President Marilou Villafranca said the GPC acts as a credit card for government purchases.
“In particular, this will cut the manual processes of paper-based cash advances as well as liquidation. It works like a credit card. Just use your card and then upon billing cycle, the agency will have to pay the entire amount,” she said.
Villafranca said an integrated digital expense management system will be used to view the transactions.
The integrated digital expense management platform, scheduled to go live by the fourth quarter of the year, will automate all expense processes from transaction capture and reconciliation to approval workflows and reporting.
“From the time you use your card, that’s already transparent in the expense management system. You will immediately see how you used your cards. And also, this expense management system can be viewed by the Commission on Audit. So we can give them access and they can see the spending,” Villafranca said.
The new LandBank Visa GPC is expected to automate procurement-related payments for public sector institutions, including low-value purchases, government travel spending and recurring expenses.
It enables government institutions to transition from traditional cash advances and manual reimbursement processes to a secure and fully digital payment system.
The card also provides accountability through built-in controls, including spending limits, merchant restrictions and digital monitoring that will help agencies strengthen compliance.
LandBank First Vice President – Retail Banking Group Kris Cuevas said government agencies will set the limit on the value of transactions.
“There is a limit. This will be discussed. It could vary per agency depending on what they require and what they’re used to…their spend,” she said.
Among the first government institutions to adopt the LandBank Visa GPC is the Bureau of the Treasury, which manages the custody and disbursement of government funds across its 16 regional offices nationwide.
LandBank aims to onboard 2,000 agencies before the end of the year.
Visa Philippines country manager Jeffrey Navarro said the partnership with LandBank aims to make sure that the government procurement process will be more seamless, more secure, and more transparent.
“It’s designed to improve efficiency, strengthen financial control, and really give the government agencies more visibility over their spend. This initiative really helps the government in terms of minimizing, if not eliminating manual processes. And the good thing about that is government agencies can now really focus in terms of delivery of service if we minimize a lot of these processes,” he said. (PNA)
