GCash

GCash is a phenomenon.

GCash is now the Philippines’ largest money transfer service, the most popular Filipino finance app, the largest virtual bank and the biggest cashless ecosystem. GCash has become the ultimate financial inclusion tool benefitting adult Filipinos who have no bank account but have one or even two cellular phones. GCash has gone also into digital lending.

What the Bangko Sentral ng Pilpinas has been trying to achieve in the past 30 years, GCash did in just three years – involve at least 80 percent of adult Filipinos to have a financial or bank account.

GCash’s furious growth came after Martha Sazon became its president and CEO in June 2020 just as COVID was beginning to maraud across the archipelago with the worst epidemic of the century. The epidemic triggered an urgent need for contactless, cashless and retail digital financial services. GCash is now larger than most of the Philippines’ 30 commecial banks, and will make them irrelevant soon.

Launched in 2004, GCash has had over 94 million adult users with total value of transactions hitting P1.5 trillion, up from just P500 million in March 2022.  About 57 percent of users are women. Most users are middle or low income. GCash has become a habit, but not nefarious like smoking.

GCash is the first and only Philippine pentacorn. GCash valuation has hit $5 billion, more than double from its $2-billion value in 2023. The $5 billion was reached after Japan’s largest lender, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, acquired an eight percent stake for $393 million in early August 2024. Mynt also owns Fuse, a lending app.

The e-wallet enables users to make and collect payments, shop here and abroad (in more than 16 countries and territories) and avail themselves of services like credit, remittances and investments.

GCash is owned by Mynt, a fintech startup set up in 2015 as a partnership between telco giant Globe and Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba. Together, these firms’ stakes make up close to 70 percent of Mynt. Globe’s mother company, Ayala Corp., recently increased its separate stake to 13 percent. GCash is a portfolio company under 917Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Globe.

The pandemic fueled GCash’s spectacular growth as locked down Filipinos could not go out and do cash transactions in person. “What used to be a physical trading activity can now be done even while taking care of the household,” says Martha, adding, “Any industry which involves money is relevant to GCash.”

GCash keeps looking for innovative solutions to various financial needs of the public.

“GCash is the leader in terms of users, usage and the ecosystem around it. We’re able to do this while achieving profitability through multiple revenue streams. This is a feat that only a handful of fintech companies in the world have been able to achieve,” Sazon says.

Says GCash in the 2023 annual report of Globe Telecom, its mother company: “With a vision of Finance for All, GCash empowers Filipinos to conduct everyday financial transactions at the convenience of their smartphones – from sending money, bills payment and e-commerce, to savings, investments, insurance, lending and many more.”

In 2023 alone, GCash did the following strategic moves:

• Become the everyday and trusted Finance Superapp of Filipinos now with over 5x more active users and 10x more daily active users than the next Finance App (based on statistics from reputable third party provider data.ai).

• Trailblaze in financial services through continuous innovation to empower Filipinos on their financial journey.

• Continue to scale its largest cashless ecosystem with a complete suite of digital solutions that democratizes financial services for all Filipinos.

• Strengthen GCash merchant proposition and distribution network with unique and data-driven merchant solutions and the 100 percent acquisition of ECPay.

As of end-2023, GCash had 1,700 employees, six countries supporting it overseas, 17 countries supporting it for cross-border payment and 200-plus countries supporting it where the newly launched GCash VISA card is accessible.

Also last year, P118 billion of LTD loans were disbursed to over 3.9 million borrowers, helping provide credit to those who need it the most. Sakto Loans was launched providing market entry-level loans as low as P100 to help Filipinos cover daily expenses powered by Credit Scoring.

About 9.5 million and 5.8 million Filipinos could grow their hard-earned money through GSave and GInvest, respectively.

GStocks PH was launched providing easy access to stock trading opportunities in the Philippine Stock Market with ABCapital.

Over 16.3 million policies LTD to over four million users were sold through GInsure by embedding insurance to everyday use cases.

GCash intensified consumer protection through DoubleSafe, Send Money Protect, Online Shopping Protect.

Over four million were prevented from entering the GCash platform for fraud.

For 2024, GCash sees promising opportunities for Gogoro as it expands its network in four key ways:

• Scaling up the number of GoStations to extend the coverage of the network, thereby broadening the addressable market for Gogoro Smartscooters.

• Increasing the number of company-owned dealerships to provide wider coverage. Additionally, while building out the network, the company will organize specialized on-ground events to engage with the target audience in trade shows, commercial and residential areas.

• Introducing creative financing and energy subscription plans, along with payment schemes, to facilitate easier ownership of Gogoro products for Filipinos.

• Launching additional models across different price ranges to diversify the product range. Widening Gogoro’s reach is crucial for maximizing its impact and solidifying its position in the market.

Under Martha, GCash continues to innovate and expand its offerings amid “significant opportunities for growth and success.”

“With a strategic focus on network expansion, customer engagement and product diversification, Gogoro is poised to lead the way in shaping the future of sustainable transportation in the Philippines.”

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