Smart Money grows 61% in 2011

MANILA, Philippines - Smart Money, the country’s first and largest electronic wallet service, grew by double-digit rates in 2011 on the back of innovations like a new Android application for smartphones and a more extensive network of Smart Money exchange centers.

Consumer mobile transactions on Smart Communications Inc.’s electronic money service rose by 61 percent, driven mainly by a 98-percent increase in peer-to-peer transfers or the electronic transfer of funds from one Smart Money account to another using Smart mobile phones.

Online purchase transactions also grew by 133 percent in 2011 from the previous year. 

There were more than 10 million Smart Money accounts as of end-2011.

The Smart Money application on the Android Market, the country’s first electronic wallet app launched last September, contributed to the increase in peer-to-peer transfers last year, according to Elmer M. Malolos, SMART group head for Financial, Load and International Services.

“The app has made it easier for Smart Money users to transfer funds to friends, pay their bills, load up on phone credits, and make international remittances.

Menus and entry fields are laid out on a friendlier user interface,” Malolos said.  

Smart Money chose the Android as its initial platform for its new smartphone application because the mobile operating system of Internet giant Google is the fastest-growing in the world. 

Aside from the Android app, the 62-percent expansion of Smart Money’s ‘money-in, money-out’ (MIMO) network was also a major factor in the increase in transactions.

Consumers can now load and encash from their Smart Money accounts in 100 Smart Stores, 750 BDO Unibank Inc. (BDO) branches, and 4,700 Smart Money Centers, including more than 200 CIS Bayad Centers nationwide.

 Launched in December 2000 in cooperation with 1st eBank (now BDO after it was acquired), Smart Money is the first mobile money service in the world.

 It has also partnered with MasterCard to enable account holders to do cashless shopping in more than 30 million MasterCard-accredited merchants worldwide.