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MANILA, August 6, 2008 – This day marked the ground-breaking partnership between the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP) and Nokia (Philippines), Inc. in the promotion of a breakthrough mobile phone banking (m-banking) services, being developed for the rural banking sector by the Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) Program, which will revolutionize the financial systems of the microenterprise and microfinance sectors.
Nokia Phils. Country Manager William Hamilton-Whyte said that mobile phones are now “increasingly being seen as a business tool across the developing world and especially in the growing and vibrant microenterprise sector.”
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MANILA, August 6, 2008 – The Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP) and Globe Telecom’s mobile commerce subsidiary G-Xchange, Inc. (GXI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formalizing their partnership to support and jointly promote the expansion of mobile phone banking services (MPBS) of rural banks. GXI President Rizza Maniego-Eala and RBAP President Tomas Gomez IV signed the agreement which will serve as the framework for the expansion of MPBS developed under the RBAP’s Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) Program - and other related services using the GCASH payment platform to more than 500 rural bank branches and their clients.
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From New Horizon Q1 2008
The Philippine Central Bank fosters an environment that helps bring mobile banking services to rural shopkeepers, street vendors and household-based entrepreneurs.
In the Philippines micro, small and medium-sized enterprises make up 99.6 percent of total businesses and employ 70 percent of the workforce. Around 4.1 million families belonging to the lowest-income strata are engaged in microenterprise activities.
Without access to financial services, these microenterprises are forced to rely on more expensive sources of credit, such as informal money lenders, that limit their growth capacity.
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Submitted by Ana Escalante
Last week I attended to a conference at Chemonics International by John Owens on mobile banking (m-banking). Almost every writer on NextBillion has written blog posts about this new approach to banking. According to John Owens -chief of party for MABS from Chemonics International- m-banking is the future of micro-finance and rural banking, especially in remote areas - and many people agree. With the increase in cell phone sales in the past years, more people have cell phones and therefore banking services have a broader market base in which to operate.
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By Oliver Teves, Associated Press
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Dennis Tiangco receives money at a bank that was sent by his mother in Hong Kong thru his cell phone in San Miguel town, in the northern Philippines. More than 5.5 million Filipinos now use using their cell phones as virtual wallets.
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SAN MIGUEL, Philippines — It's Thursday, so 18-year-old Dennis Tiangco is off to a bank to collect his weekly allowance, zapped by his mother — who's working in Hong Kong — to his electronic wallet: his cellphone.
Sauntering into a branch of GM Bank in the town of San Miguel, Dennis fills out a form, sends a text message via his phone to a bank line dedicated to the service.
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From The Economist print edition, Nov 15th 2007
Banking on mobile phones holds promise, provided regulators are willing to be flexible
THE idea that mobile phones bring economic benefits is now widely accepted. In places with bad roads, few trains and parlous land lines, they substitute for travel, allow price data to be distributed more quickly and easily, enable traders to reach wider markets and generally ease the business of doing business. Leonard Waverman of the London Business School has estimated that an extra ten mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country leads to an extra half a percentage point of growth in GDP per person. To realise the economic benefits of mobile phones, governments in such countries need to do away with state monopolies, issue new licences to allow rival operators to enter the market and slash taxes on handsets. With few exceptions (hallo, Ethiopia), they have done so, and mobile phones are now spreading fast, even in the poorest parts of the world.
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By Roel Landingin and Richard Lapper, http://www.ft.com
Running a small bank that is big on microfinance can be tedious work. Take it from Omar Andaya, whose family owns Greenbank, a rural bank based in Butuan city in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.
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Tuesday, 02 October 2007
The Philippine Star
Mobile phone banking services developed in the Philippines was highlighted in an international conference held in Washington recently.
The United States Agency for International Development-supported Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP) -Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) program attracted attention during an international technology conference held at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC and sponsored by the International Finance Corp. (IFC), the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), and VISA International.
The conference on “Next Generation Access to Finance: Gaining Scale and Reducing Costs with Technology and Credit Scoring” featured technologies used by pioneering organizations in the financial services industry — including microfinance organizations — to reduce costs, reach new customers, and scale-up delivery of services.
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Tuesday, September 04 2007 ( www.philstar.com)
After being among the first financial institutions in the Philippines to use mobile phone technology, especially short message system (SMS) or text message, for remittance and utilities banking activities, the rural banks are now involved in withdrawals through SMS.
A good example is Bangko Kabayan,which has been offering the Text-A-Payment for some time now. Recently, it introduced the new Text-A-Withdrawal services at its Calaca branch.
The progressive rural bank has a growing number of clients residing in Balayan which is located some 40 minutes away from the nearest branch in Calaca.
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A new website www.mobilephonebanking.rbap.org has been launched to further support the expansion of mobile phone banking services for rural banks and their clients utilizing the MABS-designed mobile phone banking applications that utilize the Globe Telecom’s electronic money platform - GCash. The new website is an online resource for mobile phone banking services and provides users with a directory listing all of the 287 accredited rural bank branches. The website also lists the rural bank registered merchants that accept mobile payments via GCash, allowing GCash users to easily locate merchants in their towns. Clients and merchants can now download the forms required for registration and access instructions and guidelines. Step-by-step instructions and requirements are also available to users of the new mobile phone banking services.
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Microfinance Pacesetter
In 2001, Bangko Kabayan’s management decided to embark in microfinance and join the network of rural banks participating in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported, Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) Program. MABS provides training and technical assistance to its participating rural banks to help them establish profitable and sustainable microfinance operations. They in turn, offer microfinance products to the still largely under served microenterprise sector.
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Ted Torres
Philippine Star
A microfinance project prepared by Globe Telecommunications Inc. (Globe) and a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded program has been selected for possible financial and technical assistance from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation CGAP Technology Program.
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More and more people throughout the country are discovering the ease and convenience of M-Commerce through G-Cash. Microentrepreneurs, farmers, fishermen and rural communities can now enjoy wireless access to financial services thanks to the partnership between G-Xchange, Inc. (GXI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Globe Telecom, and the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines-Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP-MABS) Program.
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