Quick, easy and hassle-free with Globe G-Cash Beep Mastercard

TODAY, millions of Filipinos are enjoying the convenience of cashless shopping and bills payments – as well as paying for their MRT and LRT fares with the new GCash Beep Mastercard — an all-in-one value-added card that is also Beep-ready to allow cardholders to load and pay for their MRT, LRT and bus trips easily.

The GCash Beep Mastercard is linked to a GCash account, an electronic money wallet that facilitates safe, secure and hassle-free mobile transactions; such as the purchase of prepaid load, bills payment, money remittance, donations and online shopping, without the need to bring any cash.

G-Xchange Inc. (GXI) President and CEO Albert Tinio talks about how the GCash Beep Mastercard is making cashless transactions quick, easy and hassle-free. “The GCash Beep Mastercard is a prepaid card connected to Mastercard. With the money on your account, you would be able to pay bills and do purchases with shops and merchants, as long as there is a Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminal that accepts Mastercard. Just take out your card, have it swiped. It can also be used for online merchants,” Tinio explains.

ONE FOR ALL, AND ALL-IN-ONE

The new GCash Beep Mastercard is a GCash card with a Mastercard logo that is linked to your GCash wallet. It lets you shop securely from partner establishments that accept Mastercard as a mode of payment and combines the features of a prepaid electronic wallet that can be swiped at any of 33 million Mastercard-enabled shops internationally or be used to shop online. As an added feature, it also acts like a reloadable stored value card, promoting hassle-free commute by facilitating easier, cashless payments on the transportation lines of LRT1, LRT2 the MRT3 and a number of buses around the Metro. The GCash Beep Mastercard is operated by Mynt, a FinTech startup wholly-owned by Globe Telecom that offers a range of key financial services. Mynt is an affiliate e-money issuer (EMI) of BancNet.

“Within the new GCash Beep Mastercard resides two wallets, a GCash wallet that serves an electronic money wallet and a Beep wallet that stores credits that can be used for Beep terminals in the MRT, LRT, the P2P and BGC buses. Two separate wallets are in one card to offer convenience to the user, as an electronic money wallet and a transportation wallet,” Tinio discussed.

Loading money into the GCash Beep Mastercard is easy. For over-the-counter transactions, just go any GCash Partner Outlets (GPO) or agents, like convenience stores, pawnshops, and malls. For online, users can go to partner banks like the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and link the card with the mobile banking account. You can move money from the bank’s online portal to the card for easier loading. Currently, the GCash Mastercard costs P150 and comes with a free Globe Prepaid SIM.

SPREADING FINANCIAL INCLUSION ONE TRANSACTION AT A TIME

Promoting the use of electronic money is in line with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) advocacy to establish a National Retail Payment System (NRPS), a safe, efficient and reliable electronic retail payment system that is interconnected and interoperable. This retail payment system presents the potential for increased efficiency, greater opportunities for consumers and businesses and increased access to financial services.

“First and foremost, our advocacy is financial inclusion. It is providing financial means for those who don’t have access to financial services. Cash will always be there, you will always have need for it. But there are cases where the use of electronic money may possess several advantages. It’s safer, convenient and easy and we want everybody to be able to use it,” Tinio expresses.

THE FUTURE OF MONEY

According to data provided by GCash, a total volume of P6 billion ($120 million) worth of transactions is being processed monthly. It is powered by a growing number of 4.4 million users making more than 300,000 transactions daily, almost double from a year ago. The GCash App is also growing, downloaded more than a million times, and increased by 100,000 new downloads every month. While cash still prevails for a majority of Filipinos, alternative payment options are quickly gaining ground, powered by technology to make life more convenient, quick, easy and hassle-free,” Tinio shares.

“Cash has disadvantages; it is bulky, unsanitary, risky and lacks the needed trail for a history of transactions. But to encourage people to patronize electronic money, it takes a lot of education and you need to let people experience the convenience. More than 90 percent of Filipinos are prepaid subscribers of telcos so almost everyone understands the concept of buying load. We begin from there and explain how GCash can make life easier,” Tinio concludes.