The United States Agency for International Development-supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP) – Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) Program conducted two separate GCASH accreditation trainings for rural banks from the Bicol Federation and National Capital Region (NCR) on May 10 at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Naga City and May 29 at the RBAP Conference Room in Manila.
Five (5) participants from four (4) Bicol Federation banks – Rural Bank of San Jose (Camarines Sur), Bangko Rural ng Magarao, Rural Bank of San Fernando (Camarines Sur) and Rural Bank of Pasacao – attended the training while seven (7) participants from four (4) banks – Bangko Nuestra Senora, Banco Alabang, Country Rural Bank of Taguig and Rural Bank of Karamotan – joined the training for NCR banks.
The training is part of the USAID-supported RBAP-MABS Program’s initiative to assist rural banks by providing a range of solutions that will make banking products and services more easily accessible to more clients. As of April 2012, RBAP-MABS has accredited more than 1,100 bank branches and units to offer mobile phone banking services accumulating over PhP 16 billion worth of mobile phone banking transactions since 2005. In addition, more than 390,000 rural bank clients and conditional cash transfer (CCT) recipients have made use of mobile phone banking services.