As good as Gcash
To repeat a cliché, money talks and everybody listens. Now, listen to this: These days, while money’s good, we need gcash. No need to whip out your wallet and show ’em the color of your money. All you need is a Gcash Card (and of course, a Globe phone to put your mobile money in)!
Since it was launched last October 1, a horde of assorted users has been gcashing in on convenience.
Gee, what’s a gcash card? To those who don’t have one yet (mine is due in a week or so), the young and affable Rizza Maniego-Eala, president of G-Xchange, Inc., elaborates, “The Gcash Card is the first customizable ATM card (the only one in the country today) that gives users access to an additional 9,000 locations to cash out their gcash using almost any ATM nationwide, on top of the 18,000 outlets they used to access.”
“It’s a fully personalizable card, you can choose whatever design you want, you can apply for it on the web and it’s paid by gcash,” adds Richie Sison, marketing head, Globe M-Commerce Business Development. “It gives gcash users absolute convenience in terms of cashing out gcash in any of the 9,000 ATMs in the Philippines.”
It’s fully customizable. Look, you can make your own personalized ATM card design, put your favorite photo of yourself or with your family or friends, or choose from a variety of design templates.
Baby, it’s hue! I chose a very girly design in pink, my favorite color. Besides, I thought that would ward off any burly thief who wouldn’t want to be caught red-handed with a screaming pink card!
At the Gcash Card launch at Conti’s in Greenbelt 2, Makati, Richie shares, “We basically looked at the Filipino, observed what the consumer does, if his probable needs are met or not. When we looked at the typical Filipino wallet, minus your cash, what you have is a picture of your family and an ATM card. So what we did was we brought the two ideas together. We found that a lot of Filipinos actually have a problem with an ID. And whenever they need to do transactions with financial institutions, they need an official ID. So, what we’ve done was we went by the three needs: ATM access, personalization, and your ID.”
Richie points out, “We’ve received tremendous response from our gcash users. A great majority of them are putting their family pictures — more than 60 percent of them.”
“We’re right smack on our research,” Rizza notes.
“It’s still very much about the family,” Richie observes. “We’re also kind of calling it a Facebook type of application because everybody seems to be getting their Facebook profile
pictures and putting them on their cards as well.”
The Gcash Card serves as a valid ID — at the back of the card is the subscriber’s 1 x 1 photo. Yes, you can use the photo from your Facebook profile. Very handy, especially if you don’t have an official ID or a driver’s license and you want to get into one of those big buildings, for instance, in the Makati Business District or a government office that won’t let you in without a valid ID.
Rizza reveals a wealth of info about gcash: “Over the past five years, gcash has been focusing on what we call the underbanked market or the communities in the rural areas. After the business development work we’ve done there, we’ve now seen that we also need to bridge the link between the bank market and the underbanked. So this card is specifically for our customers who have a bank account or have access to financial services and live in the key cities where ATMs are present. As Richie mentioned, there are three functions: One is a personalized card, second is access to ATM for withdrawals or cashing out from your gcash wallet, and third is a valid ID. So this card is specific to a certain customer segment of our market. So it would be, for example, for buyers and sellers online because they use gcash to pay for goods sold over the Internet. Second, it would be for international remittances where beneficiaries are living in the cities. Third, the domestic remittance recipients, like students whose families are in the provinces but receive their allowance. Another customer segment would be employees who receive salaries, commissions, or incentives using gcash because we have a lot of partner companies who disburse salaries and incentives using our gcash. In the past, they would go to physical outlets to convert electronic money or gcash into cash; now, if they’re in the city or near ATMs, they can use the ATM as well to make a cash-out.”
Richie describes, “A greater majority of Filipinos are unbanked. These unbanked still have savings habits, but it’s not the traditional savings — these are savings that they put under the mattress or in the cupboard for emergencies. This is their first line of defense.”
More and more are cashing in on gcash, says Rizza. “People use gcash for payment of mortgages to their banks; they also use it to donate to Children’s Hour, Bantay Bata, etc., to pay for tuition fees, Mercury Drug purchases, purchases at select National Book Store branches or select branches of SM Department Store. But the function really is for remote payments — international and domestic remittance. Domestic remittance can be broken down further — money transfer, allowance giving or sending back funds home. We have 18,000 cash-in and cash-out partners. On top of that, you now have access to 9,000 ATMs. We have a total of about 6,000 merchants accepting gcash for payments on top of the 18,000.”
According to Rizza, housewives (who are anything but plain) are one of gcash’s big customer segments. “Housewives are the gatekeepers as they receive the salaries of the breadwinners or their husbands — oftentimes, the blue-collar worker husband would be in the city, say a driver or construction worker or a mining employee in the province but will have to send salary to the city. They will receive the funds instantly on their mobile phones and they can either make direct payments for school, mortgages, etc. We have a hundred schools who accept gcash. Or they can go to the nearest outlet to exchange the electronic gcash to physical cash and use it for whatever needs they may have.”
What if somebody steals your Gcash Card? Well, the thief would have to steal your phone, too, to get to your gcash wallet (which is in your phone). And that thief will have to know your pin to get to your gcash.
Ricardo “Don” Alair II, G-Xchange finance & operations head, tells more about gcash’s security features, “If you’re using your phone to transfer money, you have a mobile pin. You can’t do any transaction without keying in your mobile pin. Similar to the card, before you can cash out money, you have to key in the pin. You can lose your phone but you still have access to your cash that nobody else can get.”
Don proceeds to demonstrate how fast, how easy, and how secure it is to send gcash. After one failed attempt, he successfully sent P50 to his probably surprised wife. This devoted husband confesses he has two M pins but only one wife — but of course! “The most common mistake of Pinoys is using their birthdays as their pins. You can only try accessing your pin three times. After the third try, your phone is locked. The system will tell you you have received money from someone. The daily limit is P40,000 and the monthly limit is up to P100,000.”
Rizza points out, “We only earn P2.50 per transaction so we don’t want you to be buying a TV set with your gcash. We want you to send P100 or P2,000, etc. to somebody.”
“Yes, it’s now easier for wives to ask for money,” the Globe guys chorus with creased foreheads. “They love it!”
Rizza informs us, “It’s a different market for OFWs — gcash is six years old now, we’re present in 25 countries with 800 outlets. So if an OFW goes to one of our partner outlets, gives his dollars or foreign currency, that outlet converts it to peso and sends it to us. In five seconds, the intended recipient will get it. There’s no mobile banking in those places, the Philippines is advanced. But once there is, OFWs can send money directly from their phones — in the future. Our price is 30-percent cheaper.”
Again, say hello to the Gcash Card!
