PLDT wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) is optimistic that the SIM card registration bill, if passed into law, will boost e-commerce and fintech services in the country. This, after the House of Representatives approved the proposed measure on third and final reading earlier this week.

House Bill No. 5793 mandates every public telecommunications entity (PTE) or direct sellers to require buyers or existing owners of SIM cards to present a valid identification with photo. They will also need to accomplish a control-numbered registration form. PTEs and sellers would also have to establish a SIM card register and submit its updated database to the Department of Information and Communications Technology every six months. Failure to comply with the measure allows telco entities the authority to automatically deactivate their services to prepaid SIM card customers.

“It will boost e-commerce and fintech adoption and growth, in the sense that the process of SIM registration already hurdles the know-your-customer step required when signing up for fintech apps like PayMaya and other digital services. The mobile number is now associated with a subscriber,” said Atty. Roy Ibay, Smart Communications Vice President for Regulatory Affairs.

Ibay, who also serves as the Vice President and Director of the Philippine Chamber of Telecom Operators (PCTO), said that the bill should also provide safeguards that will to avoid disruption of service for prepaid subscribers by giving them enough time to register their SIMs and ensuring that adoption or use of the national ID is already in place.

“We hope that the subscribers will be given at least a year to prepare and register their SIMs,” he said.

A similar measure is currently pending in the Senate. If passed, lawmakers believe that the bill can restrict criminal and fraudulent acts being carried out using mobile SIM cards.