Bangko Mabuhay and GCASH serve the mobile money community of Cavite
27 August 2010
Bangko Mabuhay together with G-Xchange Inc. (GXI), a wholly-owned mobile commerce subsidiary of Globe Telecom, brings the benefits of mobile money and convenient remittance pay-out options in Cavite.
Using the GCASH platform, its branches serve as cash-in and cash-out facilities for customers who would like to take advantage of the convenience that mobile money transfer offers. Bangko Mabuhay is also an active pay-out outlet for GCASH REMIT, cash pick-up remittance service under GXI.
Bangko Mabuhay, registered as Rural Bank of Tanza (Cavite), Inc., has over P900M in assets serving thousands of clients in the province.
See full section printed on Philippine Star on August 27, 2010.
The rural banking industry partnering to expand micro-insurance
19 August 2010Manila Times – RBAP’s research and training arm, the Rural Bankers Research and Development Foundation, Inc. (RBRDFI), will receive a US$ 100,000 grant from the Interna-tional Labor Organization (ILO) under the Micro-insurance Inno-vation Facility. This collaboration aims to support RBAP members in partnering with insurance compa-nies to offer micro-insurance.
Housed at the ILO’s Social Finance Programme, the Micro-insurance Innovation Facility seeks to increase the availability of quality insurance for the developing world’s low-income families, helping them guard against risks and overcome poverty. The Facility facility was launched in 2008 with the support of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This new partnership with the ILO will support training and technical assistance for rural banks to become licensed micro-insurance agents. It will help provide micro-insurance access to potentially millions of rural bank clients and their dependents. This initiative will also support RBRDFI in offering a turnkey approach to ensure rural banks’ cost-efficient compliance with licensing and capability-building requirements as institutional micro-insurance agents. Rural banks will facilitate marketing, selling and servicing of micro-insurance, with the commercial insurance companies issuing the policies.
The partnership with the ILO and the Gates Foundation will expand RBAP’s intiativeinitiative to provide support to member rural banks and reinforces the unique position and important role that rural banks across the country have in providing social protection to the most vulnerable. Through micro-insurance, rural banks would be able tocan provide the assurance and protection that in case of a peril or tragedy, the poor will not become poorer or those who have succeeded in improving their lives will not become impoverished once again.
Read the complete article on Manila Times online.
ILO, Gates Foundation assist rural banks
17 August 2010Philippine Star – The Rural Bankers Research and Development Foundation Inc. (RBRDFI) will receive a $100,000 (roughly P4.6 million) grant from the International Labor Organization (ILO) under the Microinsurance Innovation Facility. The facility was launched in 2008 with the support of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
On the other hand, the RBRDFI is the research and training arm of the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP), which has gained international attention in its efforts in microfinance, mobile banking and poverty alleviation.
The grant will support RBAP members in partnering with insurance companies to offer microinsurance to its six million bank clients nationwide.
“With the help the facility, rural banks can introduce quality insurance for the low-income families, thus helping them guard against risks and overcome poverty,” the ILO said in a statement released by the Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) Program. The program is a joint effort of the United States Agency for international Development (USAID) and the RBAP.
Read the complete article on Philippine Star online
Making Microfinance Mobile
20 July 2010CGAP - Mobile banking services are beginning to revolutionize the way people in developing countries manage their money, creating opportunities for microfinance institutions to substantially improve their services. Although widespread m-banking services are currently only present in a few countries, a new CGAP Focus Note, Microfinance and Mobile Banking: The Story So Far shows how microfinance institutions (MFIs) can link into existing m-banking services to make it more convenient and cost-effective for customers to borrow and repay loans. Still, for those MFIs located in countries without an existing m-banking service, most will find it too expensive, time-consuming, and complex to develop a service on their own.
The study, which examines the intersection of mobile banking and microfinance in countries both with and without existing m-banking services (Bolivia, Cambodia, Kenya, Malawi, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tanzania, and the Philippines), found that giving customers the flexibility to make loan payments and deposits using their mobile phones typically shortens group meetings and decreases cases of theft and fraud.
Mobile payment users seen to reach 109 million
14 July 2010Philippine Star – Mobile payment users worldwide are forecast to increase 2.1 percent to 109 million by the end of 2010, a US-based research firm said in a report.
Gartner Research said total mobile payment transactions will total nearly 4.5 billion in 2012, up from just 125 million in 2007, growing at an annual compounded rate of 105 percent.
In the Philippines, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) estimates that there are at least eight million Filipinos using mobile phones to make bills payments and other banking related activities.
According to Gartner Research, mobile payment users in the Asia and Pacific region will surpass 62.8 million in 2010 and represent 2.6 percent of all mobile users in the region.
In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, mobile payment users will total 27.1 while in North America, mobile payment users will number 3.5 million and represent 1.1 percent of all mobile users in the region.
Read the complete article on Philippine Star online.
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