UNBANKED and uncarded customers of the utilities controlled by Metro Pacific Investments Corp. “may soon participate in the digital economy” with the launch of Smart Communications Inc.’s newest electronic mobile payments platform.
Through its mobile money service Smart e-Money Inc. (SMI) and in partnership with Zalora Philippines, the fashion brand of Berlin-based company Rocket Internet, the wireless services provider launched late Wednesday MePay, a telco-agnostic payments platform that allows users to shop online.
MePay users can top-up their accounts through direct transfers from Smart Money accounts or through any of the 30,000 Smart Money Padala centers nationwide.
Initially available in the Philippines, MePay will soon provide a robust and effective payments platform for emerging markets like the Philippines, especially those countries with low banking and credit-card penetration.
“The Philippines has one of the highest growth rates for e-Commerce in the Southeast Asian region but credit-card ownership is still at just around 4 percent of the entire population—a longtime hurdle which MePay intends to address. Since many Filipinos do not have a bank account or have yet to own a credit card, e-Commerce has not flourished in the country as much as everybody expected,” said Benjie S. Fernandez, chief operating officer at SMI.
“With MePay, we are expanding the space for e-Commerce around the world by enabling secure and convenient online payments through a service that’s easy to use and access. In the next few months, you will see more features added to MePay,” he added.
Initially, MePay can be used with online lifestyle portal Zalora, a Rocket Internet company operating in the Philippines, as part of the series of collaborations with the global Internet firm following Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.’s strategic investment in the company back in August.
Soon, Fernandez said, MePay will also be available for customers of Manila Electric Co., and Maynilad Water Services Inc., among others.
“Definitely, utilities is one of the areas that goes to the masses. So yes, we will soon process payments for the masses. We have a vision that will allow your daily wage earners to start ‘doing sachet things’ for their monthly electric bills for example,” he said.
Smart has paved the way for mobile money with the launch of Smart Money in December 2000, a first-in-the-world service that has made payments and remittances easier and hassle-free for consumers.
“With the launch of MePay, we are kicking it a notch higher and taking e-Commerce to the next level by opening up the platform to merchants, big or small, so they can easily accept electronic and mobile payments from their customers,” Fernandez said. “We are aggressively rolling out the MePay platform across more online merchants in the Philippines, as well as activating the ability to add more fund sources in the months to come.”