SMART Padala, the remittance arm of PayMaya Philippines Inc., targets to expand its network of merchant partners—touted as the largest in the country—by almost 40 percent in 2019, as it expects digital remittance to outpace and outgrow traditional means of sending and receiving money.
Butch C. Conejos, channel head for domestic business at Smart Padala, said his group aims to add 10,000 more merchant partners to its network to cap 2019 off with 36,000 micro, small and medium entrepreneurs that serve as conduits for digital remittances.
“Right now, we have about 26,000 registered partner agents, and next year, we want to grow it by 10,000 more,” he said in an interview. “Our network is the largest in the Philippines in terms of partners.”
Smart Padala, Conejos said, will give prime focus on on-boarding new partner agents from the Visayas and Mindanao.
“Our aim is around 30 percent to 40 percent of our target merchant partners will be from the Visayas and 30 percent to 40 percent from Mindanao,” he said.
Currently, 85 percent of the total municipalities in the Philippines are covered by Smart Padala, with the company having at least one merchant partner for each municipality.
Conejos added the company sees digital remittances outpacing and outgrowing traditional remittance services in the next five year, as “people buy convenience through their mobile phones.”
Smart Padala serves customers with a growing suite of digital services that includes bills payment, Add Money to PayMaya accounts, loan disbursement and QR payments.
“Smart Padala is a critical ingredient in building a ‘cashless’ Philippines. Our more than 26,000 agents around the country act as community hubs for financial and digital services,” PayMaya Philippines Managing Director Paolo Azzola said.
Based on the Inclusive Digital Finance Report released in 2017 by Fintq, a subsidiary of PayMaya, more than 70 percent of provinces have medium to low access to formal financial services, effectively leaving them out of the growing digital economy.
Azzola said given that the majority of Smart Padala’s outlets nationwide are sari-sari (variety) stores, “the service is able to reach even far-flung communities and barangays located outside the usual city centers—enabling convenience of financial transactions for the majority of Filipinos around the country.”