Study shows SMS Reminders Boost Ontime Loan Payments

January 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Professor Dean KarlanInnovations for Poverty Action (IPA) led by Professor Dean Karlan of Yale University, in partnership with United States Agency for International Development-supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines-Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) Program,  conducted a study to test the effectiveness of using text messages (SMS) for loan payment reminder. Updates on this study were shared with RBAP-MABS on January 20, 2012.

In partnership with two RBAP-MABS participating banks, Green Bank Inc. and the Rural Bank of Mabitac, IPA studied the impact of SMS reminders with 1,259 first time borrowers. The study was designed to investigate the importance of the SMS’s timing, framing and personalization of reminders sent to borrowers.  For a period of sixteen (16) months between January 2009 and April 2010, 840 randomly selected loan clients received SMS reminders in their local dialect reminding them to pay their loans.

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Mobile Money for the Developing World

September 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Asia Foundation – A rapidly increasing number of people across the globe are now staying connected to one another via a mobile phone device – whether it’s an iPhone, Nokia, or Samsung. In fact, the United Nations reported earlier this year that the worldwide figure for cell phone subscriptions had topped five billion at the end of 2010. According to the International Telecommunication Union, approximately 3.8 billion of these mobile subscriptions were from developing countries – with India and China fueling this upsurge.

As this trend continues, the mobile financial services market is also booming, and is increasingly dominated by Asia, driven by mobile, operator-led initiatives in these developing nations to “bank the unbanked.” Developing countries such as Pakistan are among those that have made remarkable progress in global mobile phone adoption; in 2007, while just one million Pakistanis owned bank accounts, 70 million were mobile subscribers. In April 2011, this total subscriber figure stood at 108 million. This rapid mobile subscription rise has the potential for even greater expansion among those living in the developing world with the enablement of these four mobile banking functions: government cash transfers, international remittances, bill payments, and savings.

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Visions on Mobile Banking & Mobile Money: A President’s View

August 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Four rural bank presidents share their views and visions on mobile banking and mobile money using the Globe GCASH platform in the Philippines. Click the following links to watch the videos:

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Conditional Cash Transfer Improves lives

July 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) in Tagobon, Cebu

More than a thousand people waited in line to receive their second cash payment from the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) in Tabogon, Cebu last July 26, 2011. Green Bank, a participating bank of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines-Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) Program, assisted the release of PhP 1.2 million pesos (US$30,000) financial assistance through GCASH Remit.

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Conditional Cash Transfer, Rural Banks, and Mobile Money Transfer: Observations and Reflections

May 5, 2011 By 1 Comment

By Meliza H. Agabin, RBAP-MABS Deputy Chief of Party

Rural banks like Green Bank and mobile money transfer help facilitate cash grants directly to thousands of poor families.

In a scene being played out in various places in the country, some of them more remote, over 400 households from four barangays in the municipality of Sogod, Cebu received financial support from the government through the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) on May 4, 2011.A 5-year program of the Philippine Government, 4Ps provides conditional cash grants for the poorest families in identified municipalities as financial aid for the family’s health and for children’s education. Aside from disbursements through the Land Bank of the Philippines, conditional cash transfers (CCT) are being disbursed too with the involvement of mobile money remittance channels such as rural banks and their mobile phone banking facility.

CCT 1

On May 4, I witnessed the day-long process of how atotal of PhP562,700 ($13,070) was disbursed to 414 beneficiaries composed mainly of women.It was the second cash grant for this group of beneficiaries. Each disbursement was processed through a system that involved Green Bank’s mobile phone banking facility that makes use of Globe G-XChange Inc.’s (GXI) Gcash platform.

Green Bank is a participant bank of the USAID-supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines – Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) program, which has been promoting the use of mobile phone banking in the country since 2004, especially for reaching the unbanked. Green Bank is one of the first few rural banks to adopt the mobile phone banking technology.

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