Monday, December 04, 2006

More non-bank plastic cards for Filipinos

According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, money sent home by millions of Filipinos working overseas is forecast to hit a record US$14.1 billion next year. That is why you have new companies like World Cash developing ATM cards to facilitate the transfer and easy withdrawal of money.

Some Filipinos cashing on this trend are also building value added-services on top of card. Polytron, a telecommunications firm based in Silicon Valley, has hit on a technology that combines in one plastic the convenience of a bank card and an international phone card that can be used to call at least 250 countries. It calls the spending card Global Express Money or GEM.

These players will add to the growing and highly competitive money remittance market in the country. Those who will be sensitive to the situation of Filipino families are the ones who will likely be creative in developing new value-added services.

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