MANILA, Philippines – Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) will waive most InstaPay fees starting July 4, making it the latest bank to eliminate or lower digital transfer costs after similar moves by Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and Land Bank of the Philippines.

The Yuchengco-led bank said InstaPay transfers will be free through RCBC Pulz, its main mobile banking app, and RCBC DiskarTech, its financial inclusion app.

The waiver, however, will not be unlimited for all users. RCBC Pulz customers may make up to 30 free InstaPay transfers per month, with a minimum amount of P100 per transaction. Transfers below P100 or beyond the monthly free allocation will be charged P10.

DiskarTech users, meanwhile, will be able to make free person-to-person InstaPay transfers with no minimum amount and no transaction cap.

RCBC’s move follows fee cuts by other banks, including BPI, which permanently removed InstaPay and PESONet transfer fees starting July 1, and Landbank, which earlier lowered its InstaPay fee to P8 and offered one free daily transfer for transactions worth P1,000 and below.

The changes come after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) issued Circular No. 1238, which pushes banks and e-wallets to keep interbank transfer fees close to what they charge for transfers within the same institution.

Under the new rules, any additional charge for transfers going to other banks or e-wallets should mainly reflect the network switch fee paid to operators for InstaPay and for PESONet. For InstaPay transactions, the switch fee is about P1.50, according to BPI president and CEO TG Limcaoco.

RCBC faces asset quality concerns

The fee waiver comes as RCBC is facing closer scrutiny over its loan quality. Moody’s Ratings kept RCBC’s Baa3/P-3 foreign-currency deposit ratings, but revised the bank’s outlook to negative from stable, warning that its asset quality could weaken over the next 12 to 18 months.

Moody’s cited pressure from unsecured retail loans and small and medium enterprise exposures. The debt watcher said RCBC’s nonperforming loan ratio rose to 5% as of end-March 2026 from 4.3% a year earlier, while credit costs increased to 2.4% from 1.6%.

RCBC, however, said in a press release that it was entering the second half of the year from a position of “deliberate strength,” while taking steps to protect its balance sheet as it faced “a more challenging macroeconomic environment.”

“My objective remains the same — to protect, scale, and elevate the strong franchise that is RCBC,” Cariaso said during the bank’s 2026 annual stockholders’ meeting.

Cariaso said the bank reduced the average duration of its investment securities portfolio to 3.5 years as of the first quarter of 2026 from 7.3 years in 2021, while also cutting credit lines in higher-risk segments and rolling out an analytics-driven collections program for auto and housing loan clients.

The bank also said it had locked in funding through several capital market issuances, including $350 million in offshore sustainability notes in January 2025, P12.21 billion in ASEAN Sustainability Bonds in July 2025, and P20.5 billion in bonds in April 2026.

RCBC said its consolidated gross nonperforming loan ratio stood at 4.8%, while its corporate loan book, its largest segment, had a gross NPL ratio of 2.7%.

“We are navigating a complex and shifting macroeconomic landscape. However, we have been building up our defenses, locking in strategic wins, and fundamentally reshaping our balance sheet to drive sustainable, high-quality growth,” Cariaso said. – Rappler.com