Ranking: 4

Table 1: About GCash

Sustainable finance through fintech solutions

GCash is the brainchild of Mynt (fintech arm of Globe Telecom), which serves one out of three Filipinos. Mynt (Globe Fintech Innovations, Inc.), on the other hand, is a partnership between Globe Telecom, the Ayala Corporation, and Ant Financial, providing innovative and first-in-world fintech solutions to consumers, merchants, and organisations. The vision GCash has is to enable financial access for consumers and merchants by disrupting traditional channels through digital financial technology services. To date, GCash has made financial transactions easier for its 33 million registered users.

With over 73,000 partner merchants in the country, it has helped revolutionise the way Filipinos transact.

Product strategy: Convenience, Confidence, Community

“GCash has played an integral role in keeping not only the economy going this year, but keeping Filipinos safe and sane during the pandemic. We’ve seen not only heads of households and young adults use the GCash app for their financial lifestyle, but even consumers that advocate a greener Philippines, in maximizing what our platform has to offer.”

Martha Sazon
President, GCash

GCash is the Philippine’s leading mobile wallet, serving one out of every three Filipinos. It plays a crucial role in financial inclusivity. GCash floats a range of both conventional (QR Transfers, Cash in Cash Out, Pay bills, Invest Money) and unconventional products (GForest, Ang Pao, Send with a Clip, Game Credits) to attract a wide variety of customers.

As the government increases its endeavours to digitise the economy, GCash is expanding its drives to help the Philippine Digital Transformation Strategy by partnering with government organisations. By permitting GCash account holders to pay taxes, GCash assists the public authority in carrying its administrations nearer to the Filipinos. Going forward, GCash will be playing an important role in meeting the objective “Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas”, which aims to have at least 70% of Filipinos own digital wallets by 2023.

Overview of the product stack at GCash

To fulfil its vision of providing financial services for businesses and consumers, GCash offers banking solutions for both segments. GCash provides various lending and payments functions on its platform. It has developed a unique rewards system as well as an e-commerce platform to support it. While it offers services in insurance, entertainment and utility payments, travel remains a notable exception.

3 Key Product Innovations

1. GForest

GForest allows its users to plant an actual tree by using the GCash app and track the decrease of carbon footprint one has contributed to. Each feature in the app serves as a carbon offset, which produces Energy Points (EPs). As users use the app in their day-to-day activities, they save and collect energy points, redeemed as a tree plantation activity. Currently, over 7 million active GForest users in GCash have collectively contributed to a plantation of over 1.5 million trees. GForest works in partnership with WWF-Philippines and BIOFIN (The Biodiversity Finance Initiative).

How GForest works:

2. Send with a Clip

‘Send with a Clip’ by GCash is a millennial-focused innovation that allows users to send money to fellow GCash users with a picture, a 60-second recorded audio, or a 10-second video.

Here is a step-by-step guide to ‘Send with a Clip’:

• Select ‘Send with a Clip’.
• Input recipient and your desired flair.
• Confirm the sending. The recipient would receive an SMS as well as an in-app message. When he clicks on the in-app message to open the clip, the recipient receives the amount.

However, the message is only valid for 72 hours. If the gift remains unclaimed, the money returns to the sender.

3. Ang Pao

Ang Pao, also known as ‘Red Packet’ or ‘Red Envelope’, has been one of the most respected Chinese Traditions for centuries. This token is a small monetary gift received on special or prosperous occasions (weddings, festivals, birthdays). The GCash Ang Pao allows users to set the amount type to “Equal Amounts”, meaning any amount inputted can be multipliable to how many people you will be giving. Alternatively, you can set it to “Random Amounts”, where you let GCash determine the share of each gift. However, just like ‘Send with a clip’, if the gift remains unclaimed for over 72 hours, the amount returns to the sender’s GCash Account.

Here is a step-by-step guide to ‘Ang Pao’:

• Select Send Gift / Ang Pao.
• Input the details for the recipient — the number of recipients, the amount for each person and message.
• Confirm sending – By doing so, the recipient would receive both an SMS and an in-app message. He needs to click on the message to confirm receipt.

Table 2: Selected Partners

Recommendations

1. Expand the payments ecosystem

One of the main challenges that GCash faces is that its revenue stream is not sufficient to offset its sizeable operating costs. Like other e-wallets in the Phillippines, GCash needs to reduce its reliance on costly discount and cashback programs to attract and retain users. Instead, the mobile wallet should expand its payments ecosystems to provide more services.

2. Target travel sector

With travel and tourism being an important sector in the Phillippines, GCash should seek partnerships with travel providers such as airlines and ride-hailing services. The sector represents a vast area of opportunity for GCash. It can utilise its mobile payments platform to provide GCash users with more convenient options to pay for their travel bookings. Recent partnerships with AirAsia and GerWeiss are steps in the right direction.

GCash has been able to create a unique ecosystem that combines convenience with sustainability objectives. Such a model is definitely worthy of your consideration to change the way people transact.

Endnotes

GCash, (n.d.). GForest.

GCashResource, (2021, May 4). A Deep Dive of the Send Money Options of GCash.

Globe Telecom Inc, (2020, December 31). Group annual report.