Globe Telecom and Bridge Mobile brings GCas to Asia

Bridge Mobile and Globe Telecom’s G-Xchange, Inc. announced their collaboration to develop a regional mobile payment service for members of the Bridge Mobile Alliance – CSL of Hong Kong, Maxis of Malaysia and Taiwan Mobile.

The regional mobile payment service will be based on Globe’s award-winning GCash solution in the Philippines and will enable Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Bridge Mobile Alliance member operator territories to open their own GCash wallets outside of the Philippines for fund transfer to other GCash users, merchants and institutions in the Philippines – directly from the local SIMs of participating member operators. This offers greater flexibility and convenience to OFWs in terms of fund transfer and management as currently, GCash wallet accounts can only be set up and accessed with Globe-roaming SIMs.

G-Xchange, Inc. (GXI), a wholly-owned Globe Telecom, Inc. (Globe) subsidiary in-charge of its m-commerce initiatives was also set up for the purpose of developing, designing, administering, managing and operating software applications and systems for m-commerce. The company is set to showcase GCash, Philippines’ first integrated mobile payments service in this week’s CommunicAsia.

GXI President, Rizza Maniego-Eala, sees an opportunity for the Company to expand its network of potential partners to tap into additional foreign markets. “The GCash platform has been enthusiastically received by the international community and interest have come from selected parts of the Middle East, Asia and Africa,” shares Eala, adding that the first implementation of GCash in Asia will happen towards the latter part of this year. This development was made possible with Globe’s partnership with Bridge Mobile Alliance.

A consortium of eight leading mobile operators in Asia Pacific, Bridge Mobile Alliance is dedicated to fostering collaborative business relationships that deliver seamless mobile services across the region, and developing leading-edge technologies relevant to the Asian market.

“In the regional implementation of the GCash service, Bridge Mobile provides a common-access gateway that aggregates and routes all transactions to and from the GCash server to Bridge Mobile Alliance member operators and their customers. This ensures successful end-to-end fulfillment of GCash transactions,” says Jojo Vega, GXI’s Head of International Business Development and Licensing.

Seow Yoke Kong, Vice President, Service and Technology Development of Bridge Mobile, says, “There is an estimated community of 1.5 million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) located across Bridge Mobile Alliance member operator territories such as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan. Together with Globe, we offer to these OFWs a new means of convenient mobile payment via the GCash solution.”

Widely recognized as a pioneering innovation in m-commerce both locally and abroad, GCash addresses broad scale mobile payment needs by facilitating micro-finance transactions, remittances, bills payment, and other fund transfers via SMS.