Mrs. Sheila Milan owns W’s Pizza, a pizza parlor with branches in three Mindanao towns (Cantilan, Madrid, and Tandag). In March 2007, Sheila, a borrower and depositor of Cantilan Bank since 2005, agreed to become a bank partner-merchant and started accepting GCASH from her customers. Since then, Sheila has seen her sales expand because of mobile payments. Now, she is able to accept orders for delivery that are paid through GCASH. All three of her parlors now accept GCASH as payment; the cashiers of the other two branches send their GCASH sales to her at the end of each day phone-to-phone. [Read more...]
Mobile Phone Banking Services Expands Access in Rural Communities
September 25, 2008 By 1 Comment
Cantilan Bank identified the upland area of Ban-ban – a small sitio in Barangay Paniquian of Carrascal town – as one of the places to promote their Text-A-Payment service. Banban is relatively hard to reach due to rough, dusty roads that zigzag and are quite steep at some stretches. Cantilan Bank’s main branch has around 45 microloan clients in Banban, borrowing in groups or individually. Group loan borrowers gather weekly with their payments on hand to meet and give their payments to the bank’s account officers, who go to the center of Bgy. Paniquian for weekly collections. On the other hand, individual borrowers have to go to the bank to pay. [Read more...]
Mobile Phone Banking Services Expand Business Opportunities in Surigao del Sur
September 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Loida Llamas owns and operates Pawnshop de Madrid – Madrid, Surigao del Sur’s “homegrown” pawnshop. On the side, she makes and sells trinkets and fashion accessories. Loida, a depositor of Cantilan Bank, decided to accept GCASH from her customers in March 2007; she now uses the mobile phone banking services of the bank for practically all of her business transactions. Loida gets the raw materials for her trinkets from Manila-based suppliers. She now pays them through Text-A-Payment instead of making inter-branch bank deposits. Her sub-dealers likewise remit their sales purchases by sending her GCASH. Loida also sends money phone-to-phone to relatives via Text-A-Remittance. [Read more...]