GCash Sees Surge in eWallet Use in the Philippines

Mobile wallet company GCash is aiming to remove friction from financial services in the Philippines where consumers have seen challenges, according to a press release.

The unbanked there encounter multiple physical documents to apply for accounts, minimum balances, fees and credit history to cater to their financial needs, the release stated.

The Philippines-based FinTech launched GCredit in 2018 to streamline financial services, and its mobile wallet has spearheaded financial process transformation. Now, the company has more than 46 million users in the Southeast Asian country, according to the release.

“What we have, versatility as an app, and our tens of millions of users, are something like-minded institutions and partners can take advantage of to further widen access of financial services to Filipinos,” said GCash President and CEO Martha Sazon in the release.

The firm’s savings product, GSave, has almost doubled in six months, growing to over $176 million from $98 million in 2020, the release stated. And GCash’s microinsurance offering, GInsure, which launched in-app in 2020, currently accounts for a third of all new insurance policies issued in the country.

Through GCash’s invest platform, GInvest, the company has been able to capture 70% of the domestic market of total Unit Investment Trust Fund (UITF) accounts in six months, according to the release. As of June, the firm’s lending service GCredit disbursed about $294 million worth of loans, with an average of about $20 million disbursed per month.

The FinTech recently launched GLoan, a new service that allows GCash users to borrow as much as $490, and it is looking to launch a buy now, pay later (BNPL) service this year, the release stated.

In other news, Philippines’ Voyager Innovations, a payments startup, raised $167 million in funding in June, with plans to build up its FinTech division, PayMaya Philippines, and expand into digital banking and financial services

Read more: Voyager Nabs $167M, Prepares to Launch Digital Bank in Philippines

And this month, the central bank of the Philippines approved a digital banking license for PayMaya, which will allow the company to set up a digital banking unit called Maya Bank.

See more: Philippines Grants Digital Banking License to PayMaya