By Joann Villanueva/ PNA
MANILA — Mobile wallet provider GCash and CIMB, which have all-digital banking operations in the Philippines, joined hands to provide the first-ever mobile savings wallet in the country, GSave.
In a briefing Thursday, Mynt head of Savings Kim Aimei Seng said GSave offers a higher interest rate of 2.3 percent compared to regular bank savings deposit accounts.
She attributed this to lower operational costs as their product is offered through an all-digital platform, without the overhead costs of a conventional banking platform.
GSave also does not require a maintaining balance and can be easily opened through the GCash mobile app.
Seng said about 126.9 million mobile phone SIM cards are currently in use and average daily internet usage is 10 hours.
Seng said the high penetration of mobile technology in the country is a strong reason to provide a product like GSave, which would be greatly helpful to unbanked members of the society.
Mynt, which is the partnership between Globe Telecom, Ayala Corp., and Ant Financial, provides financial technology solutions to consumers, merchants and organizations.
Relatively, GCash Financial Services Associate Aaron Reyes said that to date, GSave is available to existing and verified GCash holders.
He said there are about 20 million GCash accounts but the verified holders only number “a few thousands.”
“We’re focusing more on customer experience before we actually launch the entire product,” he said, citing that the product currently runs on beta mode, a version that is being tested before its eventual release.
Reyes said they also conducted a campaign in Facebook in recent months wherein ads popped out randomly asking the Facebook account holders if they want to try GSave.
Those who are interested in the mobile savings account were asked to send their mobile numbers upon which GCash people collated the data.
