BanKO Makes Formal Financial Services
Available to Batangas City

BPI BanKO has partnered with Globe Telecom’s Bridging Communities and U.S. Embassy Manila’s United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Scaling Innovations in Mobile Money (SIMM) Project to help Batangas City’s Ilijan Multi-Purpose Cooperative (MPC) in improving its organizational capacity, operational efficiency, outreach, and good governance through the use of mobile money.

Barangay Ilijan, a rural community located along the coastline of Batangas Bay, is home to the largest electricity-generating facility in the Philippines, the Korea Electric Power (Kepco) Corporation, which owns the 1,200-megawatt Ilijan natural gas power plant. The barangay residents put up the cooperative to service the plant’s janitorial manpower and canteen concessionaire requirements. To date, the Ilijan MPC has 628 members.

By opening BanKO accounts, members of the cooperative now have access to formal banking services which were previously only available in the town’s nearest urban area 25 kilometers away. BanKO’s partner outlet network allows its accountholders to do cash-in and cash-out transactions in community establishments such as pawnshops, sari-sari stores and the like. Using their BanKO accounts, cooperative members are also able to pay their bills, buy airtime load, send money and purchase microinsurance using only their mobile phones.

The collaboration with BanKO also presents the Ilijan MPC with an opportunity for payroll and microloan disbursements using mobile money, which addresses cash transport concerns and problems with traditional loan sharks. SIMM facilitated the partnership between both parties, in line with its mission to promote the use of mobile money to expand financial inclusion.

 

 

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.