THE consortium of banks and financial institutions under the BancNet banner admitted 27 new banks and cooperatives in 2011 that allowed the group to grow by 43.5 percent, its top official said on Thursday.
In an email, BancNet President Robert Blas said the most prominent brand to join the consortium related to state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines whose membership brought the total member count to 89 in all.
The number includes two so-called affiliate switch networks.
In 2010, BancNet membership grew by only 13.5 percent, according to Blas.
“We continue to attract new members because of our wide range of services that our members and their customers enjoy. One of these is the online payment system of Cebu Pacific, the Philippine Airlines, and Victory Liner bus tickets using ATM cards,” he said.
The online filing and payment of taxes due the government, the online remittance of contributions to the Social Security System and the loan repayment of SSS members who are working overseas also use the BancNet network.
Other institutions that use the network include the mobile ordering and payment of Ayala Cinema tickets, McDonald’s and Max’s products and even the online payment of tuition fees of some schools and universities.
Blas said there is an ongoing stress-testing of the network to ensure this can perform the demands of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. forming part of the larger BancNet e-Gov platform.
Blas said BancNet is the only ATM network accredited by the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the SSS for their Electronic Filing and Payment System.
BancNet now has a network of 5,804 ATM machines equal to 50 percent of all such machines in the country.
The BancNet ATM cardholder base of 12.36 million equals 37.4 percent of the market.
BancNet processed a total of 363.3 million switched transactions in 2011. This was 10.52 percent more than in 2010 and translates to an average of almost one million transactions a day.
Transaction volume peaked on December 15 last year when this hit 2.28 million switched transactions, a new record according to BancNet Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Aris Zafra.
“Despite the heavy volume, BancNet maintained its host availability rate of 100 percent,” Zafra said.
“We are committed to maintain this high standard even as our member banks, cardholders, and ATMs increase further this year. As a matter of fact, we are upgrading our switch system to the latest version this year,” he said.
