Philippine mobile money wallet GCash has hit PHP 1 trillion in transactions for the year 2020, recording a 254% year-over-year (YoY) growth. Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. (Mynt), which operates GCash, is part of the portfolio companies of 917Ventures, the largest corporate incubator in the Philippines wholly-owned by Globe Telecom Inc.
The app peaked at PHP 7.5 billion daily gross transaction value, and more than 6 million transactions a day. Meanwhile, its customer base is said to have ballooned to more than 33 million, a third of the Philippines’ national population, displaying strong growth from 20 million users in 2019.
“The remarkable growth GCash experienced this year shows that Filipinos have embraced financial technology. People have realised that fintech isn’t just an option but a necessity, allowing them to fulfill their financial lifestyle conveniently,”
said Martha Sazon, President and CEO of GCash.
The growth is driven by an unprecedented surge in usage in GCash to GCash money transfers, bank transfers, online and offline cash-in services, and bills payments, all of which have become necessities during the pandemic.
According to data from App Annie, a third party global app ranking firm, GCash has been top ranking mobile wallet in the country for eleven consecutive months this year. It widened the gap further in active users, leading more than double than the next banking app, and almost three times the size of the next mobile wallet.
Their data also showed that the GCash app also overtook popular streaming and social services such as Netflix, Twitter, Grab, and TikTok. This reflects the Filipinos’ growing reliance on digital finance to manage their personal finances and to carry on with their daily lives while also staying safe with contactless transactions provided by fintech apps like GCash.
GCas has also introduced more than 3 million Filipinos to open their own savings accounts through GSave as of November 2020, and have reportedly extended over PHP 8 billion in credit through GCredit.
“While we experienced unprecedented growth in GCash this year, our ultimate objective is to democratise finance to all Filipinos, and further enable their financial lifestyles. We are positive that fintech services such as GCash will play a key role in the ongoing payment revolution in the Philippines in the coming years,”
Sazon added.
GCash’s performance in 2020 accelerates the fulfillment of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ Digital Transformation Roadmap, where the agency aims to shift at least 50 percent of retail payment transactions to digital, and to have at least 70 percent of Filipinos have their own e-wallet by 2023.
Earlier this year, GCash hit a record PHP 100 billion transaction value during the first seven months of 2020, and has disbursed over PHP 16 billion SAP disbursements to 2 million Filipinos nationwide.