UK-based mobile payments firm sees huge potential in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — UK-based mobile payments provider Bango sees vast growth opportunities in the Philippines as technology-savvy Filipinos turn to their cellphones for entertainment and financial transactions.

Anil Malhotra, founder and chief marketing officer at Bango, said the Philippines is one of the higher growth markets of the company as consumers in the country love to use their mobile phones.

“The growth opportunity for Bango in the Philippines is significant,” Malhotra told The STAR in a virtual interview.

He said that Filipino consumers love entertainment, such as watching Netflix, listening to Spotify and even playing games.

Bango was founded in 1999 and provides the technology and partnerships that online merchants need to acquire more paying users. Thousands of merchants and developers benefit from the Bango technology and ecosystem, from startups to the world’s largest online business, including Amazon, Google, Samsung and Microsoft.

Bango enables customers to reach 4.5 billion individuals online, across 75 countries, and generating over $1 trillion in revenue a year.

Malhotra said a recent survey by Bango showed that 81 percent of subscribers across India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines are grappling with over-saturation toward subscriptions, otherwise known as “subscription fatigue.”

What is alarming is that 44 percent of the respondents feel that pirated streaming services are the best way to access content.

Clearly, as the dissatisfaction grows among Asian consumers, the need for a more streamlined and efficient approach to managing these services becomes imperative.

For the Philippines, Malhotra said Bango is making sure that the right content is available for consumers who very much enjoy global content such as shows from Netflix and Amazon, games from gaming providers as well as local contents.