Mobile shopping

MANILA, Philippines - More than just texting or making calls, a cellphone these days can also be used to browse the Internet, take photos, better yet, shop and even pay for movie tickets in advance. Being the sole ATM consortium to be linked to all three major telecom networks in the country and BancNet’s recent partnership with mobile payments service provider, ican, shopping conveniences are now possible.

Given that a huge number of Filipinos own a cellphone and use it on a daily basis, it’s probably already safe to assume that the local market is more than ready to start making use of their mobile phones for things other than texting. Nini Octaviano, chief operating officer of ican talks about how their tie-up with BancNet will change the way people shop and pay their bills – in a good way.

Long line at the cinema? By simply installing the ican application into your mobile phone, such an inconvenience can be easily avoided. Compared to the more common way of mobile transactions, Nini is proud to say that ican makes use of a “non syntax user interface” which makes things a lot easier for users. Through this new and improved system, users can simply click on the commands that they want rather than agonize over whether or not they got the right codes.

In developing this new technology, Nini assures BancNet users that the 2-factor authentication that they’ve installed in BancNet makes every payment transaction through ican not just hassle free but secured as well.

Currently, ican’s partner merchants include Rustans and Stores Specialists Inc. where one can get all the best international high end brands, Rustans Supermarket and Shopwise, Memo Express (the largest retailer of mobile phones), Power Mac Center, Philips (for audio visual products), Office 1 (for school supplies), and Ayala Malls (for movie tickets).

To register, BancNet ATM cardholders can visit http://www.bancnetonline.com or http://www.i-canworldwide.com. A download link for the ican application will then be sent to you through your mobile phone, so make sure that what you’re using is JAVA capable. After the one-time registration, ATM cardholders can easily make use of any of their BancNet ATM cards to make purchases. Because of the convenience that it offers, Nini shares that the service has actually gained a steady user base and even reached a high during the holidays.

“We believe that the local financial institutions are ready for this service especially since there are more ATM cardholders in the country compared to credit card holders. Two years after putting up ican, we now have a good set of partner merchants,” she says.

For more information about ican please visit www.i-canworldwide.com