Mobile Wallet For Payments, Remittance, And Bank Transfer

Gone are the days when students have to wait for days, or even weeks, to receive monthly allowance or money for tuition. Once upon a time, parents, who are miles away from their children, had to rely on financial services that either need bank clearance or a certain amount of days to be withdrawn or claimed.

- Marlet Salazar

Technological innovations, especially the advent of mobile apps, have made various financial transactions such as money transfer so much easier and almost instantaneous. People are slowly discovering the convenience of cashless shopping and paying using their smartphones.

There are several payment apps available for use today. Many of them cite Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ call to pursue financial inclusion of the unbanked and underserved sector of society, many of whom live in far-flung areas where there are no banks at all.

While independent statistics of cashless payment adoption in the Philippines are scarce, the visibility of QR Codes and mobile payment lanes in department stores, supermarkets, and even mom-and-pop shops, are proof that many Filipinos are embracing, albeit slowly, the ease of mobile payments.

However, GCash recently reported that it reached 50,000 QR merchant mark in the first quarter of 2019. PayMaya, on the other hand, said in news reports in 2018, that it is looking at increasing its user base to 30 million by next year.

The apps, the cards

In terms of top-of-mind recall, GCash and Paymaya are among the top mobile payment apps people are familiar with today. However, beep, a card used for paying for rapid transit fares, is now evolving to a smart card introducing other services outside transportation. Ride-hailing app Grab has been aggressively pushing users to utilize its GrabPay features. Then there are Coinsph, Okto, and the eldest in the bunch, PayPal.