It’s all shoulders to the wheel now for Perth based tech play Peppermint Innovation after the Central Bank of the Philippines green-lighted their innovative mobile bill payment and money remittance APP.
The company has been sweating on the notoriously hard to get central bank approval to commence a trial of their fully developed technology with their in-country partner MyWeps.
MyWeps is a company associated with one of the largest multi-level marketing businesses in the Philippines, 1 Bro Global, who boast over 90,000 agents in their multi-level marketing business.
The central bank has approved 500 MyWeps agents to conduct a trial of Peppermint’s technology over a three month period and if successful, Peppermint will look to make the technology available to all 90,000 agents.
Peppermint’s bill pay and money remittance APP is an innovative answer to the problems experienced by millions of people in the Philippines who still do not operate a bank account.
They generally get paid by their employer in cash and they then put up with the inconvenience of physically paying their bills in cash, a prospect that would make a busy western world person shudder.
To send money to a remote family member when neither party operate a bank account is also an extremely complicated process. It involves physically attending at a money remittance business premises regardless of how far away that might be.
Peppermint’s mobile phone APP that is driven by a complex piece of interconnected, backend technology, provides for individuals to become a Peppermint agent, or in this case a MyWeps agent.
The agent is then able to offer people in his or her network or neighbourhood the opportunity to transfer money to a family member or associate across town or in another city via the agent’s mobile phone APP that is driven by Peppermint. They can also pay their household bills using this system.
The customer pays his or her money to the MyWeps agent and the MyWeps agent then remits the money and collects a small percentage fee for each transaction. Another MyWeps agent in the receiving location is then able to pass the money onto the person receiving it or in the case of a bill being paid it is simply passed onto the billing utility.
The fee is then shared with Peppermint.
Commenting on the Pilot, Managing Director & CEO, Chris Kain said: “The pilot will be the first of its kind, and we believe it supports the National Strategy on Financial Inclusion which has a key focus of providing services to the unbanked.”
Rico D Lorredo, Chairman and CEO of MyWeps International Inc. said “Our agents have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to offer MyWeps Mobile Remittance to their customers and the approval by the BSP to launch a pilot is an exciting development that takes us closer to a full scale commercial launch. We expect customers will be thrilled by the added convenience and accessibility of mobile remittance, bill payments and e load facilities which will now be available via the My Weps mobile app, powered by Peppermint.”
With 90,000 agents in the 1 Bro Global network, literally millions of people still unbanked in the Philippines and the central bank in their corner, Peppermint might have the tiger by the tail here.
By Matt Birney
