With the COVID-19 pandemic serving as catalyst, BSP Governor Felipe Medalla mentioned back in August 2022 that the share of digital payments to total retail transactions in the Philippines jumped to 30.3% in 2021 vs. 20.1% recorded in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notably, Globe’s GCash reported strong results in the 3rd quarter of 2022 with 71 Million registered users, 5.5-Million merchants and social sellers, 582 GLife merchant partners and a gross transaction value of P4.8 trillion. Just recently, GCash was also made available for international payment transactions in certain countries with its cross-border payment feature which is in partnership with Alipay<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, PLDT’s Maya reported 1 Million bank customers, P10 Billion deposit balance and over 810-K registered merchant touchpoints in the same period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since competition in the telecommunication industry has heightened, companies like Globe (GLO) and PLDT (TEL) can differentiate themselves by exploring more opportunities in their non-telco businesses Gcash and Maya, respectively. Since these e-wallets have a potential for more innovation, we see Gcash and Maya contributing more to the telco\u2019s growth moving forward especially as they continue to expand their reach and explore more partnerships with merchants across different fields (i.e. food, transport, travel etc.) locally and internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of the government\u2019s Paleng-QR PH program, merchants – starting from those in Bohol\u2019s Tagbilaran City Public Market – are now allowed to put up their respective QR codes which customers can use for a hassle-free payment experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With this initiative, micro, small and medium vendors are able to expand their market and have access to different banking services. Notably, GCash disclosed that it has onboarded 5 public markets and 133 market vendors so far. The QR codes that it has deployed as of January 10 were also all operational. Moreover, the company noted that it has around 138 active GCash Pera outlets at present where users can cash in\/out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aside from public market vendors, GCash and Maya are also aiming to extend their cashless payment schemes to tricycle drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n