Globe to sell 50 M GCash beep cards

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Telecom Inc. is aiming to sell the GCash beep MasterCards to its 50.1 million subscribers in the next three to five years.

“If you look at the market, technically everyone can have a GCash Mastercard because you don’t need the typical bank requirements. You just basically need a mobile phone. Our mid-term goal…maybe in three to five years, is to grow into Globe’s mobile subscriber base today,” G-Xchange Inc. (GXI) president and chief executive officer Xavier Marzan said.

As of end-September, Globe’s mobile subscriber base stood at 50.1 million.

GXI, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Globe, operates GCash.

GCash beep MasterCard is an all-in-one payments card which functions as an ATM Card for cash withdrawals, a prepaid card for purchases, and a beep card for the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Metro Rail Transit (MRT).

As the card features the MasterCard functionality, users can swipe their cards in all establishments accepting MasterCard.

Marzan said Globe decided to offer the GCash beep MasterCard to provide financial services to more Filipinos.

“Here in the Philippines, three out of four adults do not have bank accounts. And even within the banked population, there are hugely underserved segments with only three percent credit card penetration. We at GCash are enabling this market with financial services such as GCash beep MasterCard to give them all the convenience of cashless shopping and payment, among other benefits,” he said.