Empowering enterprising Pinays toward financial independence

AT the opening of the Franchise Asia Philippines Expo 2018 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City last week, POSIBLE, the country’s leading community digital transactions provider, unveiled a new business package geared mostly towards achieving Filipinas.

Dubbed “POSIBLE Generation 2,” the latest Device package is an upgrade of an earlier module released last year. Its centerpiece is a sleeker, bigger footprint with a larger touchscreen display capable of more digital transactions than the previous version.

This second-generation POSIBLE machine offers a repertoire of comprehensive services of a Bayad center including utility bills payment, select government fees, money transfer services, micro-insurance, mobile loading, online gaming credits, and ticketing. On top of these typical services, Posible Gen 2 now provides inventory management for small and medium businesses, card-less withdrawal in the form of gift-giving and a loyalty and rewards program for regular patrons.

The best part is that the new device opens up the opportunity to own and operate an online retail store, right within the gadget itself. The PosibleShopbox feature facilitates access to a variety of online and traditional retailers, instantly converting a business enterprise, usually a sari-sari store, into an online shopping hub of the community.

JG Puzon, Posible chief executive, said that the upgraded Posible device drew from their recognition that millennial entrepreneurs have the drive and the capability to attain their goal of economic independence.

“For this new generation of Posible devices, we want to give our young entrepreneurs the modern tools that they need to succeed in today’s marketplace,” Puzon said. “Our second generation package has more customer-friendly features for kantopreneurs and micro-syantes not just for the future, but right here, right now.”

The previous model was geared primarily towards sari-sari store owning nanays, The latest Posible package is now being offered as a viable alternative for millennials to achieve

and feel of a digital device that millennials duly exposed to cellular devices and digital platforms such as online social media will quickly appreciate.

“We simply re-energized the whole business. When we started, our focus was Nanay. We are happy how that turned out since we made a lot of Nanays happy too,” Jerwin

- ment services, told TheManilaTimes.

“We are now opening the gates for the Ates (“elder sisters”). We think that the millennials

actually seeing a trend towards enterprising millennials, multi-entrepreneurs at that. If you think about it, when those series of small ventures are connected, these young entrepre-

workers in their age bracket.”

The current trend among young professionals to establish their own ventures alongside their day jobs or quit working for an organization altogether to become full-time entrepreneurs recently reached an all-time

the Forbes “30 Under 30 Asia,” a prestigious list of 300 young entrepreneurs, innovators, and disruptors from 24 countries.

It is this generation of business-minded people that Puzon hopes to attract into entrepreneurship and push further Posible’s overall mission of eventually reaching out to the unbanked communities across the country in the process. Currently, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) estimates that up to 36 percent of towns and cities in the Philippines still do not have access to banks or payment centers.

Over the past two years, Posible has already provided more than 300 digital services to over a million unique Filipino consumers and has already generated close to P5 billion worth of transactions. With over 2,000 retailers nationwide to date, Posible is on-track to achieve its goal of connecting every Philippine town and city to the digital

When asked about the best response to Posible so far, a smiling Puzon

to me recently that she’s now considered

- munity. Why? Everybody in her area sends padala through her Posible outlet. Everyone uses her bills payment services.

“People come to her and all the money in the area goes through her. As a result, she proudly said her sari-sari store have gotten even bigger.”