Globe unit posts 50% hike in mobile phone bank transactions

MANILA, Philippines – Globe Telecom unit G-Xchange Inc. said mobile phone banking transactions amounted to P3.6 billion in 2010, 50 percent higher than the P2.4 billion recorded in 2009.

G-Xchange is Globe’s mobile commerce technology subsidiary which utilizes the GCash mobile banking platform.

Globe head of international and business markets Gil Genio said the main reason for the tremendous growth was the increased adoption by rural banks of mobile banking technology.

“By pioneering the mobile phone banking services in partnership with the Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS), we are able to offer deposit, withdrawal, loan payments, payroll disbursements, and remittance services to rural bank clients with just the use of a mobile phone and the speed of a text message,” Genio said during the recent annual convention of the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP).

RBAP is the trade organization of the rural banking sector while MABS is a joint undertaking of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and RBAP.

The Globe executive said mobile commerce will continue to grow, as rural banks continue to embrace the technology to deliver financial services to un-banked and under-banked areas in the Philippines.

Rural banks reportedly coursed roughly 700,000 transactions via GCash last year. These range from bills and loans payment to bank deposits and remittances. The transaction volume is estimated to be 27 percent higher compared to 2009.

The MABS program has more than 70 partner rural banks covering more than 1,000 branches nationwide. In this six-year span,GCash served more than P8 billion in mobile phone banking transactions.

Last year, global data from Portio Research indicate that about $108.3 billion worth of payments were transacted through mobile phones.

The international study group added that the amount is expected to grow to $633 billion by the end of 2014.

In 2009, there were only 81.3 million people using their phones to transact, a number that grew to 116 million last year and is expected to leap to 489.5 million by the end of 2014.

Likewise, the number of mobile money subscribers in emerging markets is forecast to grow from 133 million users in 2010 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent to reach 709 million users in 2015.

The total value of mobile money transactions will simultaneously grow at a CAGR of 54 percent from $25 billion in 2010 to $215 billion in 2015.

Asia-Pacific is expected to become the most important regional market, accounting for more than half of the total user base.