An Assessment on the use of Ecommerce Towards Customer Satisfaction of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) has improved people's lives by leaps and bounds. The boom of IT has affected many areas of endeavor. Big corporations are said to be those that can afford to utilize this technology, but as it evolved and grew; eventually it became accessible to many people, especially with the development of the Internet. Eventually, the business and economic world was able to detect the niche the Internet created. This came to a point of realization that the potentials of the Internet are filling in the niche with what it has to offer. This is how e-commerce all started. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the monetary authority of the Philippines has adopted the e-commerce technology as it already incorporated this techno-trend in most of its everyday workings. Towards the goal of handling the financial stability of the country, the BSP is tasked to oversee the wellness of commercial and rural banks which are borrowing money from BSP to finance their operating expenses. Loan applications from different banks are usually processed manually since the establishment of the BSP; but now recognized the need to fully prepare these banks for the e-commerce as the next step in paving the way for a more efficient and effective method of business transaction. Hence, the e-Rediscounting Program of BSP came into existence, which uses the e-commerce technology, posing a new era of doing business with local banks. Given the gap on knowledge in e-commerce, the study sought to assess this new program with the research question: How effective is the use of BSP’s e- Rediscounting Program towards the promotion of customer satisfaction among local bank clients? Specifically, the research aims to determine the nature/rationale of BSP's e-Rediscounting Program, the implementation process and strategies, perceived advantages and disadvantages of the IT innovation as applied to loan application and services system, affecting customer satisfaction. This is a descriptive-exploratory study that employed purposive sampling in a survey conducted with 25 local bank-clients which utilized the e-Rediscounting Program of BSP. An in-depth interview with the acting manager of the Systems Management Unit of BSP was also conducted with the use of an interview schedule comprised of open-ended questions. Some BSP documents were read and synthesized to support the claims of the study. The quantitative data from the survey required statistical treatment using frequencies and percentages, while the interview responses as qualitative data were also analyzed. The findings showed that Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is the main financial institution of the country that governs all the banks here in the Philippines. BSP is committed to promote and maintain price stability and provide proactive leadership in bringing about a strong financial system conducive to a balanced and sustainable growth of the economy. They adopted e-rediscounting system to allow faster transactions through the different banks nationwide through the use of the internet. The perceived advantages of E-rediscounting include reducing paper works, quicker transactions, increase access to information and reduces transportation cost while the disadvantages are slow processing time during peak hours, malfunctioning personal computer or defective mouse and other hardware problems, system errors, lack of interaction with a live person, identity theft, accuracy of data being encoded, slow internet connection, and assurance that the application will be received by BSP. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas promote customer satisfaction with regards to their e-rediscounting program by providing immediate availability and fast delivery of credit to banks in the countryside. Simplifying, standardizing and unifying loan processing and payment procedures as well as minimizing transaction costs that will mutually benefit the participating banks and their clients; and centralizing and integrating databases of rediscounting transactions. On the whole, it is therefore concluded that from the experiences of BSP’s clients, E-rediscounting as a communication tool, in spite of the negative reactions of the users of the online loan application service was later on proven to also have its benefits and advantages, as well as problems and disadvantages.