Smart partners with Seedfinance

MANILA, Philippines - Smart Communications Inc. (SMART) has collaborated with SEEDFINANCE Corp., a provider of wholesale credit to Filipino microfinance institutions (MFIs) and small enterprises, to equip island-based MFIs with mobile-based financial products and technologies that will allow them to send and receive funds using SMART mobile phones.

Dubbed as the Islands Activation Program (IAP), the initiative utilizes Smart Money as a fast and secure alternative to send and receive funds in islands or areas where there is little or no access to formal financial services, and will benefit members of close to a hundred MFIs in various parts of the Philippines.

SEEDFINANCE works with 73 cooperatives with an aggregate clientele base of 1.2 million poor and low-income people.

It signed an agreement with ENCASH to install automated teller machines (ATM) with allied cooperatives for the speedier and more secure receiving and dispensing of cash.

SEEDFINANCE chairman Carlos Ani said in a press briefing that the potential for the deployment of ATMs and starting mobile banking initiatives is immeasurable.

Ani explained that rural folk spend so much on transportation just to get to a rural bank located in a town center.

Meanwhile, the partnership between SMART and SEEDFINANCE come at the heels of the successful launch of the Smart Money Center in Polillo Island in 2008.

In October that year, the Polillo Group of Islands found its financial channels to the mainland cut off. The only rural bank went bankrupt, while the National Telecommunications Center mercilessly ceased its telegraphic transfer operations in the area. The nearest bank was three hours away by boat.

SMART partnered with the island’s leading cooperative, Rhudarda Multipurpose Cooperative, to unveil the first Polillo Smart Money Center, which allowed residents to send and receive cash in an instant through the fast and secure mobile-initiated fund transfers in Polillo at the speed of a text message. This same remittance model will be rolled out in key provinces of Visayas and Mindanao under the IAP.

Since 2000, SMART has been actively promoting the use of mobile-based financial services and microfinance solutions, through the revolutionary Smart Money-the world’s first electronic cash card linked to a mobile phone.

Through Smart Money, SMART subscribers are able to conduct mobile banking, electronic money transfers, micro-purchases and micro-payments with just a few clicks on a cellular phone with a SMART Sim.

Two years ago, SMART received a World Business and Development Award given by the International Chamber of Commerce, Prince of Whales International Business Leaders Forum, and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).