Fintechnews.PH picks every Friday for you the top 5 Fintech Philippines News of the week:
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CIMB partners PLDT units FINTQ, Bayad
Malaysia-based commercial bank CIMB Bank Berhad recently partnered with PLDT Group’s affiliates FINTQ and Bayad Center Inc in preparation for the establishment and operation of its first branch in the country CIMB Bank Philippines Inc slated in the fourth quarter of 2018.
As a provider of digital financial solutions and interactions, FINTQ through the partnership will allow CIMB to leverage on the subscriber base and customer database of Lendr, one of FINTQ’s proprietary platforms. Lendr is a fully digital end to end loan origination platform that has partnered with many major Philippine banks such as Landbank, PNB, RCBC and Maybank. Bayad Center is a an outsourced payment collection player Philippines with more than 12,000 payment channels nationwide.
Pacquiao is latest CryptoCeleb, invests in GCOX
Filipino boxing legend Manny “Pac-man” Pacquiao has become a top investor of a new cryptocurrency exchange GCOX, making the senator-athlete as the latest celebrity giant endorsing cryptocurrency.
GCOX disclosed they allow the public to engage with celebrities through the sale of exclusive goods and services, transacted through Celebrity Tokens. This promises fans to own a part of a celebrity’s fame by buying such tokens.
Pacquiao’s latest business venture mimicks the same path of so-called “CryptoCelebs” that invested in cryptocurrencies for the past few years, like his controversial rival Floyd “Money” Mayweather, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, American rapper 50 Cent, movie actor Jamie Foxx, singer Katy Perry, among many others.
Alipay rolls out in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and the Philippines
Alipay, a mobile and online payment and lifestyle platform operated by Ant Financial Services Group, has further grown its cross-border business in Southeast Asia, adding four new countries to its network – Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and the Philippines, a report said.
This brings to eight the total number of countries where Alipay services are available to Chinese visitors and local merchants in this region. With the expansion, merchants in the four countries such as shopping centers, fast-food chains, hotels etc, are now allowed to connect to 520 million active users in China via Alipay’s in-app marketing platform.
BSP, SEC set public education on cryptocurrencies
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will be partnering with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a nationwide public information drive on cryptocurrency. BSP governor Nestor Espenilla said that although the power of cryptocurrencies can speed up transactions and reach more people, they are still not considered legal tender in the Philippines.
Blockchain, crypto groups getting more active in PH
Backers of cryptocurrency and the technology behind it blockchain are reportedly becoming more active in the Philippines ever since the Bangko Sentral published published last February 2017 its BSP Circular No. 944 recognizing the potential of virtual currency. Blockchain as a business collaboration technology is tagged as the “new Web” and is not limited to fintech.
Blockchain group Noah Foundation has developed the NOAHCOIN, which can be stored in the Ark Wallet, and can be used for any specific Noah Project, which includes the development of Noah City in Metro Manila and in partnership with Dakak Beach Resort in Zamboanga del Norte, which will utilize multiple modes of payment, including NOAHCOIN.
The ideal scenario in general would be tourists travelling any part of the globe without bringing cash or credit cards and going through the foreign exchange processes. All the tourist will need is their digital wallet in the form of mobile device app and conduct transactions seamlessly.
Justo Ortiz, Chairman of UnionBank said, “Inclusive prosperity is an important goal that we need to be actively in, because financial transactions underlines all commerce, so if there’s more commerce done, if there’s more prosperity by more people then clearly we would benefit from it.
Miguel Cuneta, co-founder and Chief Community Officer of SCI Ventures, a company that uses bitcoins for remittances abroad shared that, sending money from abroad will be charged up to 10%. Through cryptocurrency that cost is reduced to one to 2%.
