The Rural Bankers Research Development Foundation, Inc. in partnership with Smart Communications Inc. and the USAID-supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines-Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) Program and partner Seed Finance held the 2nd SMART Money Accreditation Training Course for twenty-seven (27) participants from nine (9) rural banks based in Luzon on March 9, 2012.
The course was designed for qualified rural banks seeking to obtain accreditation as a Smart Money Center in order to offer money-in and money-out services, facilitate distribution of Smart Money Cards, and eventually to offer mobile phone banking services utilizing the Smart Money Platform. This accreditation training provides the rural banks with the RBAP-MABS mobile phone banking procedures and manuals required to comply with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) electronic banking regulations for the use of mobile phone banking services utilizing the Smart Money platform. As part of the accreditation process, banks still need to get a “no objection notice” from the Supervision and Examination Sector of the BSP before they can complete the accreditation process.
Smart Money is an electronic wallet that allows customers to send and receive money transfers locally and from abroad, pay bills and reload airtime by using a Smart subscriber’s mobile phone. Accredited rural banks will also be able to provide their registered clients with a Smart Money Instant Card issued by Banco de Oro which doubles as both a MasterCard debit and ATM card. This will enable registered clients to withdraw from an over 9,000 BancNet and Megalink ATMs as well as to load their card in their rural bank or more than 4,000 Money In and Money Out Centers, 15 Partner Banks nationwide and 95,000 partner agents worldwide. Clients will also be able to make purchases or payments in more than 17,300 local merchants and more than 24.6 million merchants worldwide where MasterCard is accepted.