Smart forges remittance, microinsurance tie-ups

Manila, Philippines -  Smart Communications has forged more alliances in mobile money transfers or remittances for overseas Filipinos sending money to beneficiaries in the Philippines.

The latest tie-up by the country’s leading mobile phone company is with mHITs, a pioneering developer and operator of mobile payment services in Australia.

 The SMS (text messaging) mobile wallet service of mHITs expands the low cost international mobile remittance corridor to include Smart Money in the Philippines. This means that users of mHITs’ remit mobile remittance service will now be able to send money to over 50 million Smart mobile subscribers in the Philippines.

It allows users in Australia to send money safely and conveniently to partner mobile wallet operators in other countries, such as Smart, simply by sending an SMS. 

The arrangement between Smart and mHITs allows for instantaneous, transfer of funds directly to a recipients mobile wallet account without requiring a transfer agent or bank.

Senders can conveniently perform a transaction from their mobile phone at any time and require only the mobile number of the recipient in order to send money.

Recipients meanwhile do not need a bank account, do not need to wait for the funds to arrive or do not need to travel to or locate a transfer agent to access their funds. They automatically receive an SMS notification as soon as funds are credited to their mobile wallet. 

Recipients can access the funds instantly and securely from their mobile wallet directly or depending upon their region, may also withdraw funds in cash, via ATMs and Smart Money centers.

 In Australia, mHITs operates the mHITs mobile payment service that allows users to send and receive payments via SMS text message. mHITs is also working globally to provide simple, ubiquitous mobile payment solutions for the unbanked in emerging markets.

Earlier, Smart hooked up with Beneficial Life Insurance (BenLife) for a mobile micro-insurance service aimed at providing ordinary Filipinos with accident and death insurance worth up to P50,000 for a monthly premium of as low as P9.

InsureTxt also offers coverage for death caused by natural calamities and is available to all Smart and Talk N’ Text subscribers.

All InsureTxt transactions, from registration to payment and renewal, are all done through text messaging.

The insurance program allows a minimum insurance coverage of P10,000 for P3 and a maximum policy of P50,000 for P9.

Smart and Talk N’ Text subscribers however can avail of multiple insurance policies through multiple registration using different SIM cards.

Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima lauded the insurance company for embracing technology and innovation to offer insurance to Filipinos who could least afford it and at the same time cited that the country ranks way below other Asean countries in terms of mass based insurance.

According to Purisima, the new facility of BenLife is a significant advancement in the insurance field and will certainly be a welcome development, especially for the lower classes of Philippine society.

Meanwhile, Smart joined forces with Western Union for mobile money transfers from Singapore with a rewards promotion.

Smart Money and Western Union are raffling off 15 Samsung Galaxy Mini 5570 units to users in Singapore who will use Western Union’s mobile money transfer services to send remittances to a Smart number on or before Aug. 26.

Each transaction made in participating Western Union agent locations will earn the money sender one electronic raffle entry to the Western Union and Smart Money free phone promo.

Smart and Western Union have been jointly offering mobile money transfer services to the Philippines since 2010. Western Union has more than 100,000 agent locations in over 85 countries that can send remittances directly to any of the 50 million Smart subscribers in the Philippines.

Smart subscriber-beneficiaries with a Smart Money card can withdraw the remittance from more than 10,000 BDO, BancNet, MegaLink, and ExpressNet automated teller machines nationwide, and from almost 5,000 Smart Money Centers in the country. They can also use their Smart Money account to do cashless shopping in more than 32 million MasterCard merchants worldwide. 

Funds transferred to Smart Money electronic wallets – which are linked to the account holder’s Smart mobile phone – can also be used for mobile payment of utility bills (Meralco, Maynilad, PLDT, etc.), reloading Smart prepaid accounts, and money transfers to other Smart Money accounts.

Smart subscribers without a Smart Money account yet can still receive overseas remittances via Western Union’s mobile money transfer service.

If a loved one abroad sends funds to their mobile number, they will receive a text notification advising them to open a Smart Money account and get the funds in any of the 100 Smart Stores nationwide.