Philippines-Based Mobile Wallet GCash Valued at $5 Billion

Mynt, owner of the Philippines’ mobile wallet GCash, is now valued at $5 billion.

The company became the Southeast Asian country’s first $5 billion unicorn last week following investments from Ayala Corp. and Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).

“GCash is an indispensable infrastructure for everyday life of Filipinos and we are delighted to join Mynt as a strategic investor to support the growth of the company,” Yasushi Itagaki, head of MUFG’s global commercial banking business group, said in a news release.

“With our investment, we are excited to expand our contribution to the ongoing development of the Philippines’ digital economy and financial inclusion.”

The new valuation comes as GCash is preparing to go public, as Mynt parent Globe Telecom President and CEO Ernest Cu told Bloomberg News in June.

“We’re pretty much ripe for it,” said Cu in reference to the company’s plan for an initial public offering (IPO). “The growth is there, the profitability has been there for almost two years now. The plan is to be push-button ready by the end of the year. Let’s see where it takes us.”

Also in May, GCash said 94 million people in the Philippines had tried its digital wallet. That figure accounts for about 78% of the country’s population.

In other digital wallet news, recent PYMNTS Intelligence data finds that the factors driving consumers to use these wallets can depend on whether they are shopping online or at a brick-and-mortar store.

“Specifically, 33.6% of consumers who made purchases with mobile wallets in the 24 hours before being surveyed cited rewards as an important reason that they used mobile wallets for their most recent online purchase,” PYMNTS wrote. “In contrast, only 29% said the same for their most recent in-store purchase.”

But in-store shoppers were slightly more likely to point to rewards as the most important reason for using mobile wallets, with 5.9% saying as much versus 4.7% of online shoppers. By contrast, in-store shoppers were more likely to cite concerns about fraud and security as a crucial reason for using mobile wallets than online shoppers.

Additional PYMNTS Intelligence data showed that there is notable demand for digital wallet rewards. The June report “Digital Wallets Beyond Financial Transactions: A Global Perspective” found that 28% of consumers said they will likely turn to digital wallets to store and access rewards, discounts or coupons in the next three years.

Another 22% of consumers cited rewards, discounts or deals for using digital wallets as a key factor positively contributing to their use.