Mrs. Sheila Milan owns W’s Pizza, a pizza parlor with branches in three Mindanao towns (Cantilan, Madrid, and Tandag). In March 2007, Sheila, a borrower and depositor of Cantilan Bank since 2005, agreed to become a bank partner-merchant and started accepting GCASH from her customers. Since then, Sheila has seen her sales expand because of mobile payments.
Now, she is able to accept orders for delivery that are paid through GCASH. All three of her parlors now accept GCASH as payment; the cashiers of the other two branches send their GCASH sales to her at the end of each day phone-to-phone. Early in March 2008, Sheila started selling a popular donut brand in her store. Because she finds mobile phone banking services a more convenient and affordable mode of making payments and money transfers, she talked her supplier into accepting GCASH as well. Sheila said the arrangement has been working well – she texts her orders to Mister Donut’s Butuan City office, they confirm, she waits for the delivery, and immediately makes the GCASH payment upon receiving the goods.
Sheila gets her other supplies (fries, pizza crust) from Cebu, where her brother-in-law is based. She used to send money through a pawnshop, which charged PhP65 for remittances under PhP3,000 and PhP250 for remittances from PhP3,000-5,000. “Mas dali gyud karon ug mas barato ba, kay dinagko gud ko magpadala para sa akong mga supplies ug karon, pila lang gud nang 1% kumpara sa dati nakong ginabayad. Paspas sad, na-a lang usahay na na- delay ug dawat sa akong recipient ang conformation message, pero dili man to permanente mahitabo……” (Using GCASH to make payments is much easier and cheaper. I buy my supplies in bulk, and my orders normally total up to a lot of money. Imagine how much I get to save now that I only pay 1% using GCASH instead of the traditional money transfer services. It is also fast, except for several occasions when my recipient does not immediately receive the confirmation message. That does not happen often, though…..”)
Sheila also said that now, she does not need to wait in line to be able to make the money transfer. Aside from the Text-A-Remittance service, Sheila also uses the Text-A-Deposit service to deposit her sales to her savings account at Cantilan Bank. She said that she would have used the TAP service if the AO did not come to pick up collections.
When she opened her first pizza parlor in 2005, she only had 3 employees. Her staff has now grown to 22, and Sheila plans to disburse their salaries through GCASH. “This will be more practical and convenient, especially for my Madrid and Tandag staff. I do not have to deposit their payroll or deliver their salaries personally but instead, just send GCASH phone to phone.” Sheila is also hoping that Cantilan Bank will soon offer the Text-A-BillPayment service, as she says she allots almost half a day per month to pay her utility bills.