7-Eleven PH nears full cashless rollout

Philippine Seven Corp. (PSC), the exclusive licensor of 7-Eleven stores in the country, said nearly all of its stores can now accommodate digital payments as the convenience store giant steps up investments in technology to improve the customer experience.

PSC president Richard Lee said during the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on Thursday that 98 percent of the chain’s nationwide network is now equipped to accept digital payments after a rollout that began in August last year.

The upgrade comes as more Filipinos shift away from cash and toward electronic transactions.

“So far, digital payments account for about 7 percent of customers and 12 percent of sales,” Lee said.

Customers can now pay using major credit cards, debit cards and Google Pay, while support for Apple Pay is also expected in the future, he said.

PSC chair Jose Victor Paterno said the company also refined its payment system after encountering early challenges with cashless transactions.

Initially, Paterno expected the local market to adopt a payment model similar to China, where customers present a QR code that merchants scan at the point of sale.

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Instead, the Philippine market evolved differently, requiring customers in some cases to generate a barcode at the checkout.

He said the payment infrastructure also depended on external payment partners, making the process less reliable during the early stages of the rollout. Those issues have since been addressed.

PSC ended last year with 4,491 stores, up by 423 from a year earlier, and is targeting 5,000 stores by end-2026.