BPI Globe BanKO, the first mobile–based savings bank in the country, was seen attracting the first 1 million account holders this year, a targeted number attributable to innovations in the industry and to success at the financial inclusion front spearheaded by regulators.
Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu also said the lender successfully pursued the program to increase its capital to P1 billion.
“We are very much committed to funding Globe BanKo. Globe BanKo is needed in our country to bring financial services [to the underserved] and support the country’s financial inclusion program,” he told the BusinessMirror.
“Globe BanKo has close to 1 million customers now. Loans are growing. They are turning deposits into loans,” he said.
Account holders numbered only 650,000 at end-June this year. In terms of profitability, Cua said the bank is not yet making money. “It’s not yet making money. It’s very much more of developmental stage but we’re committed to it,” he said.
The Ayala family and the Bank of the Philippine Islands totally support Globe BanKo. The past year Globe BanKO focused on expanding its credit services to cater to the ever-growing needs of its account holders. It has forged partnerships with consumer goods companies like Nestlé, Unilever and Puregold that enabled the lender to provide credit lines to micro retailers at competitive rates.
For 2014 the bank is focusing on building new loan products to increase its account holders’ access to credit for livelihood. The bank’s loans can be as low as P2,500 to a maximum of P300,000.
Globe BanKO has five bank branches and 2,600 partner-outlets nationwide. It targets to increase its partner-outlets to 4,000 by end-2014.
Clients can go to partner-outlets to apply for an account, make cash-in and cash-out, pay their bills or pay their loans.
They can also use GCash’s 7,000 outlets for cash-in and cash-out remittances or withdraw from any bank’s automated teller machines.
The BanKO cardholders can also receive remittances from overseas straight to their accounts and use their ATM cards to pay for purchases at accredited merchants.
Genivi Factao