Chinatrust Philippines, Visa offer debit cards for SSS retirees

The Chinatrust Commercial (Philippines) Inc. will co-brand debit cards starting this month with the Social Security System (SSS) for the pension fund’s retired or retiring members.

There are an average 20,000 retiring SSS members every month while the government pension fund has over 24 million members.

"It will be offered as an option, aside from the regular system to placing the monthly retirement benefits to the savings or current accounts of its pensioners,"Anthony T. Robles, Chinatrust executive vice president for retail banking group, said.

Robles explained that the debit card is ideal for retirees who do not have to go to their banks or visit an ATM, offsite or onsite. Retirees can immedately transact business or buy items and the like.

Also in the first quarter of 2007, Chinatrust will launch an SMS program that allows cardholders to receive or access their statement of accounts through their mobile phones.

"It is not the syntax format used by menu driven," Antonio Owen S. Maramag, Chinatrust five vice president said.

Visa debit cards issued by Chinatrust Commercial (Philippines) Ltd. has reached over 200,000 end November 2006, or 150 percent from the 80,000 in the same period last year.

Chinatrust debit card have been averaging over P2 million a week through point-or-sale (POS) transactions against the P600,000 weekly transactions last year. POS are transactions like buying appliances or paying for meals or plane tickets.

More than a third of the debit cards issued were utilized for remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and migrant Filipinos (MF) to their relatives and other beneficiaries. Chinatrust has 15 working alliances with international money transfer or remittance companies.

The fastest growing market in the debit card business but the payroll business has the biggest potentials. "We already has several call center accounts that may soon double our card base,"

Instead of paying cash or issuing ATMs to employees, companies and corporates could issue debit cards. They can also enroll in a program that will allow employers to upload monthly wages of its employees without the direct intervention of the bank.

Chinatrust Philippines is the second largest issuer of Visa debit cards in the Philippines. The Union Bank of the Philippines (Union Bank) is the leading Visa debit card issuer owing to its co-branding operations with the Government Services and Insurance System (GSIS).

"The challenge is how to accelerate the acceptance of the market, first from cash to plastics, then from ATMs to debit cards. The other challenge is widening of the infrastructure for debit cards," Robles added.

Total card sales volume in the Philippines, using Visa International cards, broke the P100-billion ceiling in the first six months of 2006, amounting to P103.9 billion.

The figure includes credit cards, debit cards and automated teller machine (ATM) cards.

That is a result of 38 million purchase transactions involving 50,000 merchant outlets which includes hotels, airlines, retail goods outlets like malls, and restuarants.

Visa debit cards can access funds from a deposit account rather than a line of credit. Visa debit products are the most widely used in the world offering unsurpassed convenience and reliability.

They provide consumers with the choice to "buy now and pay now", compared to Visa credit products which allow consumers to "buy now and pay later" and Visa prepaid products to "buy now and pay before."

With Visa Debit cards, consumers can transact at more than 24 million acceptance locations worldwide and obtain cash from close to one million ATMs in more than 150 countries. – Ted Torres