Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. is pushing for electronic payments in the country as a way of reaching out to “unbanked” Filipinos. Businesses are highly encouraged to promote electronic payments as a way of speeding up the adoption of digital financial services in the Philippines
“With all our combined forces, having the biggest customer franchise in the country and our wide reach and depth of engagement with consumers and stakeholders, we can all make a big push in promoting digital payments in many forms, from person to person to enterprise levels,” said PLDT chairman Manuel Pangilinan.
The businessman’s call is in support of the recently launched National Strategy for Financial Inclusion initiative of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for the development of the country’s national retail payments system.
According to the BSP, the lack of funds and access to the infrastructure are gaps that contribute to the large number of the uncarded and the unbanked in the country. In fact, the average length of time to reach the nearest bank and automated teller machine (ATM) are 26 minutes and 22 minutes, respectively. It also costs an average of Php52 and Php47, respectively, for a two-way trip to the nearest bank and ATM.
World Bank data show only 31 percent of Filipinos have bank accounts and only 18 percent of all adults in the poorest 40 percent of households in the Philippines are banked. The report classifies financial inclusion as “having an account that allows adults to store money and make and receive electronic payments.”
The World Bank report also noted that innovations in technology can make financial services such as credit and ePayments more accessible to a larger population, increase efficiencies and reduce costs.
The mobile services operator is the company behind the electronic wallet service called Smart eMoney, which has been at the forefront of electronic payments since 2000. It launched the world’s first mobile cash card linked to a phone. What started as Smart Money gave way to other groundbreaking services such as Smart Load for mobile top ups, Pasa Load for peer-to-peer transfers and Smart Padala, the leading brand for domestic remittances.
In 2014 alone, Smart eMoney, in partnership with Land Bank of the Philippines, the National Confederation of Cooperatives and various international humanitarian and aid agencies, has helped disburse over Php5.2 billion worth of cash grants to more than 1.5 million household beneficiaries, making it the single biggest conduit covering 10 out of 18 regions in the country.
Earlier in April this year, Smart eMoney became the first nonfinancial institution in Southeast Asia and the second in the world to get a principal license for issuing and acquiring business from Visa.
Smart also processed over P2.6 billion in loans in less than 10 months since the Landbank Mobile Loan Saver initiative was launched in September 2014.
Together with Citi Philippines and Visa, Voyager launched the pioneering Charge2Phone, or C2P, service that allows Smart subscribers to use the country’s first sticker-based NFC contactless payment for in-store transactions and the use of the subscriber’s mobile number instead of the usual 16-digit credit-card number for online purchase.
Voyager’s LockByMobile anti-fraud and card control mobile platform for prepaid, debit and credit cards is also another innovative product that has already been garnering positive response from the banking and financial services sector here and abroad. It was voted among the Best of Fintech during the Finovate Europe event held in London.
PLDT also formed a strategic partnership investment with global technology company Rocket Internet last year for emerging market digital payments solutions.
