Smart Money being piloted for MVP Group employees

Smart Money is a step closer to its return to the public as it is piloted for employees of the MVP Group with aspirations to grow this further and recapture the market it lost, Smart Communications chief Anastacio “Boy” Martirez said Thursday.

In a press briefing, Martirez said the pilot with employees of the MVP Group — which includes PLDT Inc. that runs Smart Communications and digital bank Maya; Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) — will serve as the basis of the expansion moving forward.

“At this point in time, we are actually piloting Smart Money... but specifically aimed at employees of MVP Group of Companies, so we’re trying to get some learnings from that,” he told reporters in Makati City.

“But of course, the aspiration is to grow it to the scale that it was before because this is our legacy. This is the legacy of the mobile network of Smart. This is our legacy,” he added.

To recall, Smart Money was launched in the early 2000s but was decommissioned in favor of PayMaya, which has since been rebranded to Maya and operates one of the six digital banks licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

“We have aspirations because the aspirations are founded on the fact that back in the day, early years of Smart, Smart was the first telco to have introduced Smart Money, the first digital wallet in the world, and we are very proud about that,” Martirez said.

“Like I said, that was our legacy. We want to rebirth it and we want to get back the market share that we used to have,” he added.

Smart Money will have to compete with its rival GCash, operated by G-Xchange Inc., which has reported 94 million Filipinos registered that have used its services based on its website. –NB, GMA Integrated News