Manila, Philippines - With the quick evolution of mobile phone technology, application and service providers need to be equally adroit or risk irrelevance and obsolescence.
Certainly, when Globe Telecoms’ GCash product was launched in October 2004, it must have appeared downright intuitive, slick, and savvy — an imaginative step toward cashless transactions outside of the traditional credit card. It delivered “over a single platform the three major cash transactions made by consumers today: purchase and payments, person-to-person (P2P) transactions, and domestic and international remittances,” said a Globe release.
Still, the GCash existed within an SMS-driven ecosystem, and not much else. “That technology at that time was very limited. We were limited to using texting… as a form of transacting and conducting GCash services,” said G-Xchange Inc. (GXI) president Paolo Baltao at the press conference to re-launch Globe’s GCash incarnation for the here and now. GXI is a fully owned subsidiary of Globe Telecom, itself a part of the Ayala conglomerate.
Baltao explained that the advent of smartphones has proven to be “a very, very good opportunity” to bring the GCash product up to speed; for GXI to “really enhance and improve our services.”
The GXI executive said the company continues to place a premium on customer experience, while maximizing the features of contemporary technology.
Part of the promise of “customer experience” is assuring consistent convenience across platforms and brands. For starters, the GCash mobile application is available for free at Apple’s App Store, Google Play, and BlackBerry App World.
Specifically, it supports the following minimum operating systems: iOS version 4.3, Android OS version 2.0, and Blackberry OS version 5.0. The quality and feel and ease of use will be the same, vowed Baltao.
The application also affords subscribers to access their contact list and “even Facebook friends.” Still, people without smartphones can continue to use the GCash service.
The Globe service allows customers to send money, buy airtime load, pay bills, and even top up toll cards like e-Pass and EasyTrip, “without the need to memorize keywords or access numbers.” You can even pay tuition or make donations to your favorite charity. The application also allows for real-time tracking of transactions for the month.
Baltao revealed that there are presently around one million GCash users. A majority uses the service to send and receive airtime load, presumably owing to a 10-percent rebate. However, GXI maintained that more people are starting to enjoy the ease of paying bills and as such, using their GCash “wallet.”
The GCash facility, insisted Baltao, is also expected to make online purchases (even on US-based sites) safer and easier for more people — specifically those who are anxious about sending their credit card information out into the Internet ether.
GCash is an effective way to limit and regulate spending on what customers actually intend to purchase; they can fill the “wallet” with the spending amount.
GXI said in its release that, over the year, GCash has “also emerged as the most preferred mode of payment for Internet shoppers… (in sites such as) Multiply, Sulit.com, Ayos.ph, CashCash Pinoy, Zalora, and Metrodeal.”
A Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas-mandated ruling places the spending or topping-off limit at P100,000 a month, but GCash users can transmit or transact with as little as one peso. Subscribers in any of 33 countries abroad may even remit money to their loved ones in the Philippines without having to troop to a remittance center. A fee of P10 per P1,000 (or fraction thereof) sent applies.
Still, having GCash will not excuse customers from having to troop to the Meralco business center if they forget to settle the bill on time. “The moral of the story is not to pay late,” underscored Paolo Baltao with a smile.
For more information, visit www.globe.com/gcash.