A barbecue stall offers GCash services at the Plaza Independencia during the Sinulog celebrations. Barbecue stall owners in Carbon and Taboan will also soon offer GCash services to their customers. /Photo by Irene Sino Cruz
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Imagine paying your barbecue meal or your taxi fare without using cash.
This scenario will soon be possible with cashless payments to be available in some barbecue stalls, transport services and other businesses in Cebu.
GCash has been working on more partner merchants in Cebu, which could generate more earnings for them, said Ronnie Buhawe, GCash regional sales head for Visayas.
With the growing number of Chinese tourists coming to the Philippines, businesses would have to be ready for cashless transactions, Buhawe said.
A 2017 survey conducted by research firm Nielsen noted that over 94 percent of Chinese tourists were expected to use mobile payment methods when travelling, bringing their cashless lifestyle overseas.
A January 2017 report of the Cyberspace Administration of China showed that there were 469 million users in China who were registered on a mobile payment platform, a 31.2 percent increase from 2016 users.
The data from China Internet Network Administration Center also indicated that mobile payment usage in transactions grew from 57 percent at the end of 2016 to 67.5 as of the end of 2017.
Cebu has also become a popular destination for Chinese tourists and has attracted almost half a million tourists in 2017.
Chinese tourists in 2017 reached 429,306, up from 244,925 in 2016 and 128,356 in 2015.
Becoming a partner merchant of GCash would then boost sales from Chinese tourists, Buhawe said.
Merchant partners at Carbon, Taboan markets soon
Aside from tapping the tourist market, entrepreneurs and other business sectors could also benefit from the growing number of GCash users now numbering 15 million nationwide, 10 percent of them based in Cebu.
GCash is also targeting businesses at the shopping malls and other micro entrepreneurs such as stall owners in Carbon and Taboan markets so they could do business with locals and tourists who prefer paying online, said Buhawe.
“Soon, we will be deploying QR kits (to Carbon and Taboan). We are developing the app so you can use it 24/7,” he explained.
Aside from stall owners in Carbon and Taboan markets, GCash had also been looking at more partner merchants located inside shopping malls in Cebu, Buhawe said.
GCash has already partnered with a Cebu-based taxi company which has a fleet of 160 taxicabs, and soon with MRK Taxi. There’s an ongoing negotiation with the owner of 3,000 of the total 6,000 taxi cabs in Cebu, according to Buhawe.
He said that accepting GCash payments would benefit business owners and other partners because it would charge a lower merchant discount rate of 1.5 percent when compared to that charged by credit cards at around 3.5 percent.
GCash, which offers an internet based payment platform, has 30,000 partner merchants nationwide and around 1,000 in Cebu, Buhawe said./dbs
