GLOBE Telecom Inc. has taken its partnership with Ant Financial Services Group to higher heights with the introduction of the “world’s first” digital remittance innovation that allows overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Hong Kong to send money to their families in the Philippines via their mobile phones.
Monday saw officials of Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. (Mynt) and Alipay Payment Services Ltd. launching the service both in Manila and Hong Kong.
“We are now using e-money technology—blockchain—to reduce cost, speed up point of transfer and make it safer for overseas foreign workers in Hong Kong to send money to their loved ones in the Philippines through GCash and Alipay,” Globe President Ernest L. Cu said in a news briefing. The service, available via the GCash app, is deemed as the “first blockchain-based cross-border digital wallet remittance service globally.”
“What used to be a long process of physically going to a remittance booth, queuing in line for hours and filling out forms, is now easily and securely done over the mobile phone in just a few seconds,” Alipay Hong Kong CEO Jennifer Tan said.
Alipay has applied blockchain technology to streamline the remittance process, “radically improving the speed of delivery, enhancing transparency of the process and drastically reducing costs while ensuring better security measures when sending money across borders.”
Through the blockchain platform, the sender and receiver are also able to track their money with every step of the way—from when the remittance application was made, until when the receiver successfully obtains the money.
It allows for round-the-clock money transfer, as well.
Mynt CEO Anthony Thomas said his group expects remittances from Hong Kong to the Philippines via GCash.
“We believe that for overseas Filipinos, sending money home to their family’s GCash mobile wallet will soon be the norm,” he said.
There are about 200,000 OFWs in the Philippines that send about HK $6 billion to the Philippines every year. In 2017 $33-billion remittance inflows was recorded.
Thomas noted the service will be free for the first three months, and will start charging a “minimal” fee more affordable than remittance companies.
Today, there are about and 8 million GCash users in the Philippines.