GCash, is a Philippine

mobile wallet A digital wallet, also known as an e-wallet, is an electronic device, online service, or software program that allows one party to make electronic transactions with another party bartering digital currency units for goods and services. This can ...

mobile payment A mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device, as the cardinal class of d ...

s and

branchless banking A direct bank (sometimes called a branch-less bank or virtual bank) is a bank that offers its services only via the Internet, email, and other electronic means, often including telephone, online chat, and mobile check deposit. A direct bank has no b ...

service. Introduced in 2004, it is owned by Mynt (formerly Globe Fintech Innovations, Inc.), which is a joint venture between

Ant Group Ant Group ()'','' formerly known as Ant Financial, is an affiliate company of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group. The group owns the world's largest mobile (digital) payment platform Alipay, which serves over 1.3 billion users and 80 million ...

, an affiliate company of the Alibaba Group and the operator of the world's leading open digital lifestyle platform,

Alipay Alipay () is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company An ...

; Ayala Group of Companies, one of the Philippines' largest business conglomerates; and Globe Group, one of the Philippines' largest telecommunications companies (Mynt is listed as a subsidiary of 917Ventures). As of 2019, it had 20 million active users and more than 63,000 partner merchants in the Philippines. However, in two years, owing to the rise of digital payments in the Philippines due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, these figures more than doubled, with 46 million active users and 2.5 million merchants and sellers as of August 2021, making GCash the country's undisputed mobile wallet giant. As of May 2022, it has more than 60 million users.

History

GCash was first launched by Globe Telecom in October 2004, offering

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

-based domestic money transfer that does not require bank accounts or cards considering 80% of the Philippine population were

unbanked The unbanked are adults who do not have their own bank accounts. Along with the underbanked, they may rely on alternative financial services for their financial needs, where these are available. Causes Some reasons a person might not have a bank ...

underbanked The underbanked is a characteristic describing people or organizations who do not (or volunteer to not) have sufficient access to mainstream financial services and products typically offered by retail banks and thus often deprived of banking servic ...

at the time. Users were allowed to convert their cash to e-money via cash-in and cash-out outlets like

sari-sari store A sari-sari store, anglicized as neighborhood sundry store, is a convenience store found in the Philippines. The word ''sari-sari'' is Tagalog meaning "variety" or "sundry". Such stores occupy an important economic and social location in a Fil ...

s with a transaction fee of . In 2012, the GCash app was launched as a move to transition from cash-in and cash-out outlets to a fully cashless system. In 2017, GCash, along with competitor mobile wallet

PayMaya Maya (formerly known as PayMaya powered by PayMaya Philippines, Inc. and prior to that, as Smart Money powered by Smart e-Money, Inc.), is a Philippine financial services and digital payments company based in Metro Manila, Philippines. Smart ...

, partnered with

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to integrate its services with

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. In 2020, GCash partnered with Philippine Seven Corporation allowing the use of the GCash app to pay in

7-Eleven 7-Eleven, Inc., stylized as 7-ELEVE, is a multinational chain of retail convenience stores, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The chain was founded in 1927 as an ice house storefront in Dallas. It was named Tote'm Stores between 1928 and 1946. A ...

branches via barcode throughout the country. 7-Eleven also has its own CLIQQ Wallet system for cashless transactions and its branches are one of the cash-in locations for GCash users. Later that year, GCash partnered with another convenience store chain,

Ministop (), a member of AEON (company), AEON, operates the Ministop convenience store Franchising, franchise chain in Japan. Unlike most other convenience stores in Japan, Ministop stores feature a kitchen that prepares sandwiches, snacks and take out b ...

, to add more cash-in locations in the Philippines. On July 25, 2021, GCash announced that its remittance service, GCash Padala, is now available to non-app users through its 2,000 partners nationwide. In November 2021, GCash's parent company, Mynt, announced that it raised $300M in funding at a $2B valuation, making Mynt a Philippine double

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. In August 2022, GCash Jr., which is designed for users aged 7 to 17, was launched.

Issues

On January 11, 2022, the GCash mobile application and its services were briefly interrupted due to a power outage that lasted for four hours.

References

External links

* {{Mobile payments Alibaba Group Ayala Corporation subsidiaries Mobile payments in the Philippines Payment service providers Philippine brands