Globe mobile wallet to charge ‘convenience fee’

The GCash wallet will start charging a 2.58-percent convenience fee next week, pushing up transaction costs as demand for mobile payments surged higher during the lockdown.

GCash, led by the Ayala Group’s Globe Telecom and Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial, said the convenience fee would be applied to cash-in transactions through MasterCard and Visa card services beginning July 6 this year.

The company said the fee was a direct charge of payment partners and would be calculated for each cash-in transaction.

The move comes as demand for digital payments went up while Filipinos were confined inside their homes when parts of the country were under enhanced community quarantine due to the new coronavirus pandemic.

GCash said transaction volume went up by 700 percent just for May this year.

“We would like to assure that GCash does not earn a single centavo from the direct charges implemented by our payment partners,” GCash president and CEO Martha Sazon said in a statement.

GCash said this was a “minimal” charge and lower than the P30-flat rate charged by its competitors, although this would depend on the value of the transaction.

GCash said cash-in via linked BPI or UnionBank accounts or through a bank app or website powered by InstaPay would not be charged the convenience fee.

Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. (Mynt), which operates GCash, is part of the portfolio companies of 917Ventures, the largest corporate incubator in the Philippines wholly owned by Globe Telecom Inc.