PayMaya expands footprint nationwide

CEBU, Philippines — Digital financial service firm Paymaya has expanded its footprint to 200,000 touchpoints across the Philippines, enabling more Filipinos to adapt cashless transactions.

“As PayMaya continues to lead the push towards cashless for all Filipinos, it is important for us to provide them with the most expansive and reliable on-ground channels that allow them to do safe and convenient financial transactions, no matter where they are in the country,” said Shailesh Baidwan, President of PayMaya in a statement furnished to The Freeman.

With this move, Filipinos can easily pay, add money, cash out, or remit using their PayMaya accounts through these accessible touchpoints that include convenience stores, retail merchants, groceries, department stores, food outlets, pawnshops, and Smart Padala centers, among others.

“We have built this robust ecosystem of touchpoints to help ensure that there are easily available and trusted avenues for our customers to add, transact, or move money for all their day-to-day needs,” he added.

According to Baidwan, PayMaya account holders need not travel very far to city centers as PayMaya’s unrivaled on-ground network of over 37,000 Smart Padala partner agent touchpoints serves as last-mile financial hubs, enabling lifeline transactions amid COVID-19 quarantine restrictions.

He claimed that PayMaya’s unrivaled network of on-ground and digital touchpoints is six times larger than the combined 12,371 bank branches and 22,162 ATM terminals currently operating across the country.

Smart Padala agents are present even in the farthest reaches of the country, covering over 92 percent of all cities and municipalities nationwide.

In a country where banking presence is limited to only 69 percent of all cities and municipalities, Smart Padala agents are connecting unbanked and underserved Filipinos to the digital economy, offering remittance, bills payment, add money,  cash out, and scan-to-pay transactions. 

PayMaya also taps into its network of trusted enterprise merchants, including MSMEs using its PayMaya Negosyo app for payment acceptance.

PayMaya's vast ecosystem of merchants, payment centers, and financial agents have become critical particularly in the government’s push to provide financial aid to those severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and various natural disasters in the past year.

By sending financial aid to their PayMaya accounts, beneficiaries can easily use the funds in PayMaya QR partner merchants or encash via the nearest Smart Padala centers in their area, making it faster and more convenient for them to get their everyday essentials.

“PayMaya has become a lifeline to many people during the pandemic, and we’re seeing it become even more essential for consumers, businesses, and the government in the years to come,” Baidwan explained.

PayMaya is the only end-to-end digital payments ecosystem enabler in the Philippines with platforms and services that cut across consumers, merchants, communities, and government. Through its enterprise business, it is the largest digital payments processor for key industries in the country including "everyday" merchants such as the largest retail, food, gas, and eCommerce merchants as well as government agencies and units.  

Through its app and wallet, PayMaya provides over 28 million Filipinos with access to financial services. Customers can conveniently pay, add money, cash out or remit through its over 200,000 digital touchpoints nationwide. 

Its Smart Padala by PayMaya network of over 37,000 partner agent touchpoints nationwide serves as last-mile digital financial hubs in communities, providing the unbanked and underserved with access to digital services.