MoneySwap upbeat on PH debit, prepaid card market

Debit and prepaid cards may surpass credit cards in the Philippines in the coming years due to the country’s demographics and the fact that a large portion of the local population remains “unbanked.”

International payment solutions firm MoneySwap said that there was a large upside for their prepaid card service, given the growing sophistication of Filipino consumers who were increasingly being drawn to online transactions.

In a briefing, MoneySwap Philippines managing director Seng SH Rhee said his company was targeting to get at least 30,000 consumers into using prepaid cards in the next three months with the launch of the MoneySwap Prepaid Card in partnership with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC).

Rhee pointed to statistics showing that about $1 billion was spent by Filipino cardholders through the Visa payment network—one of MoneySwap’s partners—during the fourth quarter of 2010 (the latest available data).

More importantly, about 54 percent of these transactions were made online, with 15 percent of this segment being overseas purchases.

The remaining transactions were completed through merchants, automated teller machines (ATMs) and other electronic devices.

Rhee noted that this growing demand for electronic payment services was an opportunity for MoneySwap, considering that many Filipino consumers—especially those with little or no credit histories—would be hard pressed to meet the strict requirements of credit card-issuing firms.

“The Philippines is one of those countries that employ a stringent and very strict procedure in issuing credit cards,” he said. “Aside from this, it is also a known fact that the majority of Filipinos today do not have bank accounts.”

“MoneySwap is providing a new avenue for this market by introducing the missing link in the local financial sphere, which is the MoneySwap Prepaid Card, powered by RCBC,” he said.

MoneySwap’s electronic wallet, which provides the same kind of authority and identity that a credit card has, allows card users a variety of services that include fund transfers and payment of bills online. The MoneySwap Prepaid Card also doubles as a foreign exchange card that can be used to withdraw cash abroad, do transactions and purchases, and create payments in the same currency as the place of destination, without stressing out cardholders with the hassle of a maintaining balance.

Local currencies where the card is used will be dispensed and the conversion rate will depend on Visa foreign exchange rates.

“I believe that every product has to have an extra value,” Rhee said, adding that the MoneySwap Prepaid Card was accepted in all Bancnet affiliate merchants nationwide and more than 30 million Visa merchants worldwide. “What our cardholders can also enjoy about the MoneySwap Prepaid Card are the discounts that they can avail themselves of from our partner merchants and establishments, which include coffee shops, wellness spas, beauty salons and many others.”