ShareThisMANILA – Overseas Filipino can now send remittances to the Philippines directly to Smart Communications, Inc. and Globe Telecom mobile subscribers through Western Union agents located in 27 countries.
To avail of the service, Smart said Filipinos working abroad can visit the 70,000 Western Union agents located in 27 countries, or its website in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom or the United States to remit directly to the Smart money account to their beneficiaries in the country.
Smart Money is the first reloadable payment card linked to a mobile phone with a Smart SIM (subscriber identification module). The platform can be used to perform mobile money transfers, pay bills, purchase goods and services.
The country’s leading mobile phone provider said remittance beneficiaries have the flexibility to store the remittance value in their Smart Money account or to withdraw the cash from over 9,000 ATMs of different bank networks.
At present, Smart has more than 45 million subscribers, of which more than eight million are enrolled in Smart Money.
Globe, on the other hand, has 24 million subscribers, of which one million are enrolled in its GCASH mobile wallet service.
GCash is an “electronic wallet” that allows users to send and receive cash and make payments — including bills, donations and online purchases — through text messaging
In a separate statement, Khalid Fellahi, Western Union’s head of mobile transaction services, said its mobile money transfer service was a key part of the company’s multi-channel strategy to offer consumers numerous ways to send and receive money.
“By continually expanding the number of locations where overseas Filipino workers can send funds to their loved ones’ mobile phones, we believe we are making it more convenient for our consumers in the Philippines to receive funds how, where and when they want,” Fellahi said.
Western Union also offers the Mobile Money Transfer service in Kenya with Safaricom; in Malaysia with Maxis; and in South Africa with Absa Bank.
The company also said an agreement with EnStream in Canada and has agreements with Zain (Airtel) in Africa and Orascom in the Middle East and with the State Bank of India, the Tunisian Post and with the Bank of Commerce & Development (BoCD) in Libya.