BanKO gets P200-M fresh infusion from Ayala Group

MANILA, Philippines - BPI Globe BanKO (BanKO) has received a fresh infusion of funds from stakeholders amounting to a total P200 million.

BanKO is a joint venture thrift bank and the only mobile technology-based, microfinance-focused bank in the Philippines. The major stakeholders are the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), Globe Telecom Inc. (Globe), and Ayala Corp.

BanKO chief operating officer John Rubio said its stakeholders continue to embrace the importance and significance of financial inclusion and the bank’s unique contribution to bringing credit to the unbanked and under banked segment of the population.

 â€œWe presented a three-year program that will result in a net income of over P100 million,” Rubio added.

Total deposit base stood at P2.05 billion, while the wholesale loan portfolio stood at P922 million. Retail loan portfolio stood at P43 million.

Lending interest rates was a modest 2.5- to three percent per month, well below the notorious five-six scheme which results in a high 20-percent monthly interest rate.

The thrift bank’s customer base stood at 431,000 with an average deposit of P310.

Instead of bank branches, BanKO relies on more than a hundred bank personnel and agents, 34 major institutional partners, and over 1,953 partner outlets including cash-in, cash-out centers.

BanKO’s current partners include Tambunting Pawnshop, CVM Pawnshop, Generika drugstores, Czarina Foreign Exchange, gasoline stations, Internet cafes, loading stations, convenience stores, and many more.

The thrift bank also partners with microfinance institutions (MFIs) such as rural banks, non-government organizations (NGOs) and cooperatives, offering wholesale institutional loans to fund MFIs’ on-lending to its client-base, and capability-building developmental loans in the form of technical assistance and financial training for the MFIs and their clients.

Base of the transactions is the mobile or cellular phone (through the Globe’s GCash), and automated teller machine (ATM) cards.

Bank customers open accounts that are bundle savings, insurance and later on, credit or loans.

Account opening takes place at agent locations where the agents are certified to perform “know-your-customer” (KYC) registration, allowing customers to leave with a fully- activated electronic wallet and an ATM card after a 10-15 minute registration process.

Registration is then processed and approved resulting in account activation. From then on, transactions can be done through the mobile phone, while actual cash transaction are done through the partner outlets, which takes the place of the traditional branches.

Recently, BanKO and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through its Scaling Innovations in Mobile Money (SIMM) project, launched the country’s first-ever mobile banking platform with the local government of Pulilan, Bulacan.

The project started a mobile money payroll platform that allows the local government of Pulilan, Bulacan to pay its 300 employees through mobile phones. It likewise allows the 10,000 Pulilan households to pay its water bills using their mobile phones.

It will result in savings for the local government unit (LGU) and the thousands of households using the local water district, as it eliminates handling cost of transporting cash from Baliwag to Pulilan, aside from eliminating risk of theft or robbery while payroll is in-transit in case of field-based employees.

It results in no average daily balances, no need for vault, enclosure or security personnel to secure cash, simplified requirements for opening accounts, and increased access points through ATMs and neighborhood partner outlets.

For the residents of Pulilan, they do have to physically go to the payment centers.

A similar operation has since been implemented in Batangas, and by the end of the year or early next year, it will be implemented in Quezon City.