MOBILE APP. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Felipe Medalla (5th from right standing) serves as keynote speaker during the launch of BPI Direct BanKo Inc., A Savings Bank's (BanKo) mobile app called eNay, intended for convenience store owners, in Makati City on Monday (June 19, 2023). Also in the photo are BSP Deputy Governor Bernadette Romulo-Puyat (4th from right), BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto Tangonan (5th from left), BPI president and chief executive officer Jose Teodoro Limcaoco and BanKo chairperson Marie Josephine Ocampo (4th from left). (Contributed photo)
MANILA – Some 70,000 sari-sari store (convenience store) owners from four Luzon provinces have been enrolled in BPI Direct BanKo Inc., A Savings Bank (BanKo) mobile app and an executive of the bank aims these numbers to reach around 100,000 within a year.
In a briefing on Monday for the launch of eNay, the mobile application intended for store owners, BanKo business head of Financial Inclusion and Microfinance Solutions Rod Mabiasen said some of the enrollees have opened a deposit account with the bank called PondoKo, which will serve as fund source that will be used to purchase groceries from the mobile app.
“By the end of the year, sana po ay na-activate na namin yung mga na-enroll na namin na account holders, which is more than 70,000. Pag dadami pa yan, pwede nating ma-reach up to 100,000 after one year of launch (By the end of the year, I hope that we have activated the store owners that we have enrolled, which have reached more than 70,000. If these will increase, we can reach up to 100,000 after one year of launch),” he said.
Mabiasen said the initial enrollees to the app are store owners from Pampanga, Bulacan, Laguna and Rizal.
BanKo has partnered with UltraMega supermarket as source of the groceries and with financial technology firm Innovaris as the developer of the mobile app and whose team goes to the ground to talk with store owners to introduce the app.
Through the app, store owners can order online and orders made from 8 a.m. to 12 noon will be delivered within the day, while those ordered past 12 noon will be delivered the following day.
Innovaris founder and chairman Joey Mendoza said they will team up with other major grocery stores in other areas to ensure that the orders will be delivered immediately to the store owners.
To date, store owners need not pay for delivery fees for their ordered groceries.
During the same event, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Felipe Medalla lauded the initiative, noting this boosts the government’s financial inclusion bid as more people open bank accounts and become part of the formal financial system.
“I’m actually quite optimistic that this way of supplying to sari-sari stores could, in the future, will be the dominant way of doing it,” he said.
Mabiasen said they are developing a loan product that will be available to eNay users either in the latter part of 2023 or early 2024.
He said initial loan will be PHP5,000 and can be utilized to pay for groceries for a minimum of PHP500. Maximum loan amount is eyed to be at PHP25,000.
“Total loan book by the end of the year sana we would have reached PHP15 billion. And sana po ay nakapagpa loan kami ng mahigit 250,000 na clients (We hope we would have reached PHP15 billion total loan book by the end of the year. And we would have extended loans to more than 250,000 clients),” he added. (PNA)
