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GCash eyes Middle East market


Financial application GCash, operated by G-Xchange Inc., is targeting to expand its footprint to the Middle East, as it seeks to enter more markets with a large population of overseas Filipinos.

Following the launch of the GCash beta mode in Canada and the United Kingdom, GCash president and chief executive officer Martha Sazon said the Middle East is in the pipeline, but would still depend on regulatory policies.

“Kanya kanyang regulatory policies ‘yan, so depende ‘yan sa permission din ng specific country na ‘yun,” she said on the sidelines of the Futurecast event in Makati City on Thursday night, but did not elaborate.

(Countries have their own respective regulatory policies, so it will depend on the permission of the specific country.)

Sought for more details, chief marketing officer Neil Trinidad said the firm hopes to be made available in the Middle East within the year, with more areas being eyed.

“We hope to be able to expand to more countries soon, where our overseas Filipinos are. It’s really our mission that wherever there’s a Pinoy, there’s also Gcash,” he said.

“We intend to serve our Filipinos in Asia, the Middle East, also in more markets in Europe. Right now there’s no GCash yet in the Middle East so hopefully soon we can expand to more countries around the world,” he added.

Aside from Canada and the United Kingdom, GCash is available in Australia, Japan, Italy, and the United States.

Under the beta mode, select users from the areas are given access to the mobile wallet feature with an international SIM card, allowing them to send more to avail of the services in the application.

GCash, which currently has over 79 million registered users, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mynt (Globe Fintech Innovations Inc.), which is in turn a partnership between Globe Telecom Inc., the Ayala Corp., and Ant Financial.

The firm last week also announced the planned rollout of the GCash Card in June, which will give users access to the VISA network with over 100 million shops across 200 countries.

Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu earlier said the company will go public “in time” as he cited public clamor, but noted that there is no timeline set for this 

The firm late last year said it has no plans of an initial public offering (IPO) anytime soon, citing the lack of a market amid the “tech winter.” —KG, GMA Integrated News

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