The GCASH Card, which is an ATM card linked to an electronic wallet, allows holders to withdraw remittances from the estimated 9,000 automated teller machines of Bancnet, Megalink, ExpressNet, and Encash nationwide.
"With the launch of the GCASH card, our customers are given an additional 9,000 locations to cash out their GCASH using almost any ATM in the country... Customers benefit from low-cost, secure, convenient and customer-friendly option of [receiving remittances]," GXI president Rizza Maniego-Eala said on Thursday in a press conference.
Globe subscribers may apply for GCASH card. Once a remittance is sent to them, they get a notification through their mobile phones. Then, they may encash the remittance using the GCASH card and any of the 9,000 ATMs in the country.
GXI says it has remittance-center partners in 33 countries worldwide. Overseas Filipino workers may send remittances through these remittance agents. The recipient then may withdraw the remittance immediately after the money is sent by the sender offshore.
Prior to the launch of GCASH card, GXI already has the GCASH service, which includes facilitation of remittances. In the past, however, GCASH subscribers who are recipients of remittances needed to go to Globe stores or GCASH payout outlets to get their money.
Eala said Globe already has about one million subscribers to the GCASH service, which has allowed facilitation of remittances and other commercial transactions, such as purchase of goods.
In particular, a GCASH subscriber may transfer fund, using mobile phone powered by a Globe line, to another GCASH subscriber as a way to consummate a commercial transaction.
GXI estimates that transactions using GCASH amount to about P5 billion a month. Transactions cover sending and receiving of remittances, and payments for purchases and bills.
Eala said that while a million clients have already benefitted from the GCASH, they would gain even more benefit with the latest issuance of the GCASH card. "It's now more convenient to receive remittances," Eala said.
Each transaction using the GCASH card is charged P20.
Like any other ATM cards, a GCASH subscriber may withdraw a maximum of P40,000 a day using their GCASH card.
The Philippines ranks 4th worldwide in terms of the amount of remittances received from migrant workers. Last year, remittances to the Philippines amounted to $17.3 billion, and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas expects the figure to grow anywhere between 6 and 8 percent this year.
The huge amount of remittances being sent to the Philippines has made the remittance business attractive to many companies in the financial services sector. - Michelle Remo, Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 14, 2010
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