AUB ready for competition in digital banking platform

MANILA, Philippines — Rebisco Group’s banking arm, Asia United Bank (AUB), is boosting its digital platform as it continues to gear up for intense competition from new entrants, particularly under the digital banking space.

Rebisco Group’s banking arm, Asia United Bank (AUB), is boosting its digital platform as it continues to gear up for intense competition from new entrants, particularly under the digital banking space.

“Obviously we welcome the influx of these digital-only banks but at the same time, we feel that we already have a viable product since 2019 and we continue to expand on it and make it more mainstream. So I guess AUB is very well positioned to take on this additional competition,” he said.

Rodriguez said HelloMoney was piloted and launched in 2019, way before the COVID-19 pandemic, making AUB probably the first purely digital-based account.

The BSP has granted digital bank licenses to six entities: Overseas Filipino (OF) Bank, Tonik Digital Bank, UNObank, Union Digital Bank, GOtyme and Maya Bank.

“The other way for digital payments to take off is to make it accessible to most Filipinos. And that was why we introduced HelloMoney,” Rodriguez said.

HelloMoney is an e-wallet made for Filipinos to provide payment and financial solutions along with convenient cash-tracking. With the app, clients could manage their funds from their phones and perform all digital banking needs with ease using this mobile application.

Another unique feature of HelloMoney is making contactless payments using QR, both person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M). AUB is among the first banks to adopt QR Ph, the BSP’s national QR code standard supporting interoperable digital fund transfers and payments via a unique QR Ph code. It also partnered with Pag-IBIG.

Aside from GCash, AUB first vice president Mags Surtida said the bank is talking with three more e-wallet operators.