Globe expands GCash service outside RP

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Telecom, a leading mobile operator in the Philippines, is partnering with Boku Inc., a global leader in mobile payments, to expand the acceptance of the Globe GCash service internationally.

The deal opens the Boku mobile payment platform and growing international merchant community to Globe’s GCash subscribers.

By partnering with Boku, GCash extends its reach outside the Philippines to a global community of more than 1,000 Boku merchant partners and a mobile payments community that covers over 190 carriers worldwide, allowing its users to purchase virtual goods from any merchant in the Boku global merchant network.

“The Philippines is one of the richest markets in the world for mobile payments. Since its inception in 2004, GCash has been the widely used mobile payment method for online purchases in the Philippines.

Boku’s focus on mobile payments, specialized team, large merchant base, and tier one investors makes them the perfect partner in providing GCash subscribers with a rich new experience in mobile commerce, that opens up the opportunity to explore and purchase virtual goods from the vast international market,” said Rizza Maniego-Eala, president of Globe’s mobile commerce subsidiary G-Xchange Inc. (GXI).

Meanwhile, Boku CEO Mark Britto noted that this partnership is a perfect meeting of two companies’ visions for the way to pay in the future.

“This is a great model for mobile payments, enabling carriers to reach global merchants through Boku’s network, expanding capabilities for online and physical purchases, while driving increased carrier revenues and reducing subscriber churn,” he explained.

Boku was launched in June 2009 and has seen tremendous growth in the last year.

Over this brief period, the company has developed direct mobile payments service relationships with over 1,000 game and application developers, including almost all of the top applications for virtual goods and currencies purchased on Facebook.

Boku’s mobile payment service, Paymo, is enabled across 190 carriers worldwide in over 60 countries, and reaches a potential 1.8 billion customers.