Mobile banking thru Smart Money hits P13.5B in 2010

MANILA, Philippines - Smart Money has facilitated P13.5 billion worth of transactions last year within remote communities that used to have limited or no access to financial services.

It is an electronic money (e-money) platform utilizing mobile phone technology. It is a product of Smart Communications Inc.

Smart Financial Services senior manager Maybelle Santos said Smart Money provides Filipinos anywhere in the archipelago with simple, secure, affordable and convenient means to send and receive cash, even without the presence of banks and ATMs in their communities.

Out of 1,635 municipalities in the country, only 610 have banks and only 27 percent of Filipinos has access to financial channels.

“Smart Money, empowers remote, unbanked, and underserved areas in the country, by enabling them to facilitate secure, economical, and convenient financial transactions, bills payment, and airtime reloading through one of the most ubiquitous gadgets of today – the mobile phone,” Santos added.

There are currently over 8.5 million Filipinos using Smart Money, enjoying the benefits of airtime reloading, bills payment, ATM withdrawals from over thousands of ATMs here and abroad, peer-to-peer mobile money transfers, cash remittances from any of 95,000 international partner transfer locations, and purchases from MasterCard establishments all over the world.

The platform allows Smart Money users to send fund transfers directly to any of over 45 million Smart subscribers.

It provides sustainable livelihood projects and new business opportunities to help micro-entrepreneur store owners enhance their lives and maximize their strengths.

Santos was one of the speakers in the National Microfinance Stakeholders Summit at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in Manila recently.

The two-day affair showcased products and services that cater to the needs of the microfinance sector, including Smart Money, the world’s first re-loadable payment card linked to a mobile phone.

The summit kicked off with a forum entitled “BSP and Financial Inclusion: Using Mobile Phone Technology to Expand Access to Finance”, a discussion by key players in the industry of how mobile commerce and electronic money can create enabling financial ecosystems for members of the base of the pyramid (BOP) to trigger economic development and empower industries.

Since 2000, Smart has been actively promoting mobile commerce usage in the Philippines through various services that run on the Smart Money platform.

It won the 2001 3GSM Award for “Most Innovative GSM Wireless Service for Customers, 2009 Asia Mobile Awards for the “Best Mobile Money Service” and “Best Mobile Money for the Unbanked” categories, and the 2010 National IP Award.

It was also cited as the “Best Product Innovation” award at the MasterCard Awards in Australia.