MANILA – The Union Bank of the Philippines has extended until the end of the year its free Instapay transfers or the instant transfer between accounts of participating central bank-supervised banks and non-bank e-money issuers in the Philippines.
UnionBank, which has been ranked as the second most helpful bank in the Asia-Pacific region during the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) outbreak, is also leveraging its “phygital” (physical-digital) banking leadership to provide both physical and digital channels for the safety and convenience of its customers during the health crisis, it said in a news release on Tuesday.
Since the start of the quarantine period, it said it has boosted its mobile and web banking platforms for retail and corporate customers – UnionBank Online and The Portal, respectively – to enable clients to do banking transactions from home.
UnionBank was also among the first banks to waive its online fund transfer fees and deployed its Bank On Wheels to bring its bank branches to the doorstep of its customers.
It said it continues to address the needs of customers who still prefer physical transactions to digital alternatives.
UnionBank has about 50 fully digital bank branches called The ARK, which provide customers physical and digital services.
Its fintech arm, UBX, has facilitated the release of cash subsidies through the deployment of mobile automated teller machines (ATMs) to its rural bank partners and financial cooperatives where beneficiaries of the government’s social amelioration program can withdraw their money quickly.
The UBX has also begun linking its rural bank members to its new network that includes Cebuana Lhuillier, LBC, Palawan Express, and PeraHub, enabling customers of these rural banks to send funds and payments to more than 11,000 branches of the four remittance centers nationwide.
Bank president and CEO Edwin Bautista earlier said amid an uncertain future, UnionBank remains committed to still provide best-in-class banking experience to the public.
UnionBank was recently recognized as the second most helpful bank in the Asia Pacific, next to South Korea’s largest digital-only bank KakaoBank, by the BankQuality Consumer Survey on Retail Banks, an online survey conducted last April 1-30, covering 11,000 respondents, with 1,000 each coming from China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. It was the only Philippine bank in the top 20 list. (PR)
