DoF eyes Alibaba financial technology
THE Finance department wants a Chinese e-commerce giant to lower remittance costs for overseas Filipinos.
In a statement on Thursday, the department said that Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd had broached the possibility of through unit Ant Financial, to lower the costs of sending money home for over 10 million migrant Filipino workers.
Dominguez said that Ant Financial’s low-cost mobile payment technology — described as hav inclusion for small home-based enterprises — could be utilized by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) for money managemement and transfer purposes.
The recently-launched Overseas Filipinos Bank can serve as the vehicle for an online payment platform, he added.
“There are over 10 million Filipinos working abroad … Ant Financial’s technology … can help them manage their cash, their earnings wisely,” Dominguez was quoted as saying during the second day of an Alibaba Business School workshop for a Philippine delegation that was in Hangzhou last week.
The workshop was organized under the auspices of an invitation extended last year by Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma.
The Finance department said that Ant Financial Services Group CEO Eric Jing was more than willing to partner with the Philip services to OFWs as well as other individuals and small- and medium-sized enterprises.
“Together we can launch a variety of services for the OFWs,” Jing was quoted as saying during an open forum following a lecture on how Ant Financial had used digital technology to help attain financial inclusion for China’s small businesses.
Jing said Ant Financial was able to reach out to 40 million offline small and medium enterprises, helped them access financial services at low costs and also ensured that they were protected while conducting online transactions.
Bill Wang, the Alibaba Group’s All- Countryside Business Unit and help farmers and villagebased enterprises gain access to low- interest credit and expand links to competitive markets.
“By partnering with the (Chinese) government, Alibaba has enabled more of these ( rural) consumers to build their own businesses and participate in the global marketplace,” Wang was quoted as saying.