Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno commended Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation’s (RCBC) development of the country’s first mobile human-assisted remote banking service that seeks to provide banking services to far-flung communities. The RCBC Moneybela Barangayan Banking is a physical-digital blended banking service that will make basic deposit account creation, bills payment, e-load, cash in or cashout, microinsurance, and telemedicine purchase accessible to previously unreached communities through sustainable e-tricycles. This service will be made available in 42,000 barangays nationwide where Filipinos will have access to banking services bundled with agent-assisted financial education. “This pioneering innovation complements the Philippine government’s thrust for digital transformation…

The number of Personal Equity and Retirement Account (PERA) contributors almost tripled two years after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) launched the Digital PERA in September 2020. The Digital PERA is an online one-stop shop where investors can open an account, browse various PERA products, monitor their accounts, and settle transactions via InstaPay and PESONet. BSP says PERA contributors increased to 4,892 on September 08 this year, from the 1,684 recorded two years prior. The number of PERA investors rose along with total PERA funds, as total PERA contributions increased by 106 percent to PHP 289.82 million as of…

Alibaba Cloud is hosting the Alibaba Cloud Summit Philippines 2022 on October 19th at the Grand Hyatt Manila, as it continues to provide customers with better services and greater value to accelerate business growth and digital transformation following the success of its Fintech Summit last June. The summit is a full-day event centered around cloud innovation that aims to provide insightful industry-driven content, keynote speeches and panels from the banking, fintech, Web3.0 and media industries by Alibaba Cloud experts and industry leaders from BSP, Fintech Alliance, GCash, ABS-CBN, UBX and more. What to expect at the Cloud Summit? The summit…

The Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) has inked a deal for a merger with the Gokongwei-led Robinsons Bank Corporation (RBC). According to CNN Philippines, both entities are aiming to finalise the merger before the end of 2023 as they they seek the approval of the Philippine Competition Commission, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Through this merger agreement, the Gokongwei Group will take on a six percent stake in BPI worth approximately PHP 25.8 billion as well as a place on the bank’s board of directors held…

Across the globe, financial institutions are under increasing pressure to remain competitive in a rapidly changing financial services landscape. Challenger banks and fintechs are leveraging modern technology stacks and agile operating models to innovate at speed and build modern, customer-centric financial solutions that consumers have come to expect. Meanwhile, many incumbents remain in a holding pattern, running legacy core platforms which, apart from being expensive and time consuming to maintain, can seriously hamper their ability to remain competitive. And it’s not only pressure from within the financial services industry causing sleepless nights for many incumbents; tech giants with seriously deep…

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has approved the second set of guidelines for digital banks following the release of the digital bank framework in December 2020. The approved guidelines set out the BSP’s supervisory expectations with regard to corporate and risk governance of digital banks as well as the applicable prudential regulations on capital, leverage, and liquidity. The guidelines also prescribe the prudential limits on equity investments in allied undertakings, required reserves against deposit and deposit substitute liabilities, and reporting requirements of digital banks. Digital banks, unlike brick-and-mortar banks, have minimal or zero-reliance on physical touchpoints as their products…

Philippines’ mobile wallet GCash announced that it has disbursed more than PHP 40 billion worth of loans as it expanded to more relevant lending products. Taking into account its lending offerings GCredit, GLoan and GGives, GCash has logged one million active borrowers as of end June. GLoan provides pre-approved access to up to PHP 25,000 cash loans instantly. It does not require any collateral and allows borrowers to choose their payment terms of between 9 and 12 months. Meanwhile, GGives is a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) solution where users have access to flexible payments with low interest rates when…

I-Remit, a non-bank remittance service provider in the Philippines, will leverage Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution to improve its cross-border treasury flows. As a partner of Ripple since 2018, I-Remit is an early adopter of ODL and has been using the blockchain-enabled enterprise solution to clear cross-border payments in real-time and cost-effectively into the Philippines. ODL leverages XRP, the digital asset built for payments as a bridge between two fiat currencies, thus enabling instant and low costs settlement without the need to hold pre-funded capital in a destination market. By leveraging ODL for treasury payments, I-Remit is now able to…

Mobile wallet GCash has partnered with the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) and brokerage AB Capital Securities to launch its in-app stock trading feature GStocks. GCash aims to roll out the feature by year-end to select users followed by a nationwide launch in early 2023, with close to 300 PSE-listed companies available for trading on the platform. According to the company, GStocks will be available to fully-verified GCash users without the need for a bank account. The platform will also be offering free top up and withdrawal services. GStocks users will be able to buy and sell local shares in real-time,…

The combined value of PESONet and InstaPay transactions went beyond PHP 5.37 trillion during the first seven months of 2022, a 43 percent increase from the values recorded during the same period last year. PESONet and InstaPay also recorded more than 348 million transactions in January to July this year, up by 24 percent from the same period in 2021. Launched under the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) National Retail Payment System (NRPS), PESONet and InstaPay are automated clearing houses which promotes a safe, efficient, affordable, inclusive and reliable retail payment system. PESONet enables high-value transactions and may be considered…

Data enrichment, the process of enhancing internal data with relevant, contextual data obtained from external sources, is critical for financial services companies looking to get the most out of their investments in artificial intelligence (AI), allowing them to build more accurate predictive models and improve decision-making, says Mobilewalla, a Singapore-based consumer intelligence solutions provider. In a new paper titled Improving Predictive Modeling Accuracy for Fintechs with Data-Centric AI, the firm explores why data quality, breadth, and depth are crucial for businesses to build accurate predictive models, and how data enrichment and feature engineering benefit AI in fintech. According to the…

GCash reached P3 trillion in gross transaction value (GTV) in the first half of the year, nearly matching its P3.8 trillion full-year GTV of 2021. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, GCash expects to end 2022 with P6 trillion GTV, six times more than 2020 and almost double last year. Likewise, its user base has grown to 66 million, with four out of five adults in the Philippines having a GCash account. GCash has also doubled down on its merchant acquisition efforts and partnerships resulting in a merchant and social seller base of 5.2 million, 1.9 times higher than the same quarter…

Maya Bank announced that it has reached a 650,000-customer milestone just three months after launch and that it has P5 billion which is approximately US$89 million in deposit balance as of end-July 2022. The bank launched its services to the public on 29 April 2022 after receiving approval from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to establish a digital bank in the Philippines in September 2021. Maya’s ecosystem includes a consumer e-wallet app, an enterprise payment processing business, and an on-ground agent network. It has also introduced a lending feature for consumers and MSMEs on its app. The digital bank’s…

The Rizal Commercial Banking Corp’s (RCBC) community-based financial service ATM Go is now servicing all 81 provinces in the Philippines through over 1,400 ATM Go terminals and 1,000 partner merchants across the country. As of end August this year, ATM Go recorded transactional volume in excess of P6.2 billion, growing 32% from last year, and a transaction count at over two million, also recording 43% growth from last year. More than 60% of transactions recorded were from 4Ps Pantawid CCT beneficiaries receiving their social grants from the government. RCBC has also facilitated the digital disbursements of over P20 billion in…

Consumer finance app BillEase has closed an up to US$20 million debt facility arranged by Singapore-based Helicap Securities, bringing the total raised by the lending platform to US$55 million in debt and equity. The company previously raised US$11 million in a Series B round led by Germany’s BurdaPrincipal Investments and US$20 million in secured debt from UK-based Lendable. BillEase is an on-demand credit and finance platform that provides services such as personal loans, e-wallet top-ups, prepaid load, gaming credits. Its buy now, pay later facility is currently accepted as a payment method by over 1,000 brands and small businesses and…

Blockchain infrastructure company Roxe announced that it has partnered with G-Xchange’s GCash to enable affordable cross-border payments. The partnership connects GCash to Roxe’s blockchain-based payment network, where users from around the world can send funds to GCash’s customers. Roxe says that it provides a better mid-market exchange rate to remittance senders compared with other cross-border remittance services by offering the FX rate from its own USD/PHP liquidity pool. For example, on 18 August 2022, the interbank USD/PHP FX rate was 55.79, while the USD/PHP FX rate offered by Roxe was 55.76. Roxe has added over 40 partners in the past…

Gokongwei Group’s digital bank GoTyme, interbank network BancNet, and Visa have formed a partnership to introduce the GoTyme Visa ATM Debit Card. This will allow cardholders to conduct Visa transactions worldwide and make ATM withdrawals when traveling outside the country. Powered by BancNet, cardholders will also be able to transact at point-of-sale terminals, as well as access a wide range of online services such as real-time fund transfers and payment of purchases by direct debit. Consumers who download the GoTyme app will be able to generate a Visa-powered virtual card for free that they can use to make digital payments…

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has issued guidelines to banks on the integration of sustainability principles for investment activities. Banks are expected to consider their sustainability objectives in their investment activities and ensure that such investment contributes to sectors considered to have beneficial impact to environment or society. The guidelines cover banking book investments or debt and equity securities portfolios that are not being traded by the bank as part of its proprietary position. Under the circular, banks will need to assess if the investment and the issuing company are exposed to material environmental and social (E&S) risks, and…

Real-time fund transfer service InstaPay processed close to 300 million transactions with a total value of PHP 5.49 trillion in the first seven months of the year. The average daily volume was 1.37 million transactions. InstaPay enables customers of a bank or e-wallet to send and receive money instantly to and from another bank or e-wallet. The service is accessible through the mobile applications or Internet banking facilities of InstaPay partner banks and e-wallet providers, making it convenient and easy to send and receive money anytime and anywhere in the country. InstaPay also saw an all-time high single-day volume of…

Data science and machine learning are some of the most complex yet important business concepts today. And many companies, irrespective of their niche, rely on them to deliver a better user experience to their customers. But what role do data science and machine learning play in the development of innovative financial systems, especially in countries like Indonesia? The lack of credit history data combined with the substantial use of mobile phones in Indonesia represents a sweet spot for fintech companies to deliver advanced user-friendly consumer financial solutions. In this episode of Data Point of View, Laurie Hood, Chief Marketing Officer…