GCash, PayMaya team up to boost mobile money usage

Chrisee Dela Paz

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GCash, PayMaya team up to boost mobile money usage
This marks the first successful interoperability trial in Southeast Asia between two mobile money providers

MANILA, Philippines – The digital financial units of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), Smart Communications, and Globe Telecom have collaborated to boost the growth of mobile money usage in the Philippines and expand the local digital e-commerce sphere. 

PayMaya Philippines of PLDT and Smart as well as Globe’s GCash conducted mobile money interoperability trials as part of their initiative of making mobile money services accessible to Filipinos.

This marks the first successful interoperability trial in Southeast Asia between two mobile money providers. 

Moves toward local mobile money interoperability took a huge step on Tuesday, February 23 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, where mobile money operators from the Philippines and key officials from GSM Association gathered to step up plans for integrating mobile money systems in the country within the year. 

GSM Association’s initiative is also in line with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)-led vision for a National Payments Retail System (NPRS) in the country.

Other stakeholders of the NPRS program include banks, remittance providers, microfinance and other financial institutions. 

PayMaya Philippines is the company behind pioneering mobile money service Smart Money, domestic remittance provider Smart Padala, and the recently launched PayMaya application.  

“This is a step toward advancing the future of our digital economy. Even before this initiative, we have pioneered a mobile payments solution that can be used by users from any telco provider by launching PayMaya, an over-the-top digital service,” Orlando Vea, president and CEO of PayMaya Philippines, said in a statement.

Growing mobile money usage

“Interoperability, therefore, is but a natural progression in the ongoing evolution of financial technology services in the country,” Vea added.

For Globe, this move underpins its commitment to drive mobile money adoption by removing barriers between different providers.  

“We advocate for mobile money interconnection to lower cost, increase convenience, and formalize cross-border remittance flows,” John Rubio, president and CEO of Mynt, a fully-owned financial services subsidiary of Globe, said in a separate statement.

Mynt is also the mother company of G-Xchange, Incorporated, which operates GCash.

With interoperability in place, users of PayMaya and GCash can soon send funds to users of other mobile money systems.

This move is seen to boost the growth of mobile money usage in the country, and in turn expand the local digital commerce ecosystem.

“We welcome this milestone on the mobile money interoperability initiative between Smart/PayMaya and Globe GCash,” BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr said.

“This development comes on the heels of the launch of the NPRS Framework in December led by the Bangko Sentral and fully supported by the industry, which aims to create a safe, efficient, reliable, and affordable electronic retail payment system that is interconnected and interoperable,” the BSP official added. – Rappler.com

Mobile payment background image from Shutterstock

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