THE pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of Filipinos under the new normal, paving the way for a safer and more effective digital journey for cashless transactions.
GCash, the mobile wallet of Globe Telecom Inc., noted a significant shift in consumer behavior during the community quarantines.
“We know that we play a pivotal role in helping consumers overcome challenges. There are four key emerging trends we observed—a contactless evolution, a stay-at-home economy, emerging virtual communities and how we navigate the financial volatility that we are facing today,” GCash chief customer officer Winsley Bangit said in a virtual forum called,”GCash Leading the New Normal,” on Thursday, Sept. 24.
Bangit said the foot traffic in physical malls and establishments declined as more Filipinos converge online for various needs.
“There’s now a shift to online to satisfy the errands. We see a rising interest in terms of searches in YouTube and Google for online marketplaces and we’re seeing an increase in the downloads of e-commerce apps, from Lazada to Shopee and even to Carousell,” he said.
With this new online behavior, this translates to a shifting traffic from traditional brick and mortar shopping to e-commerce which led to the adoption of digital financial services.
“Because of its inclusivity, GCash is now leading the charge of the digitalization of financial services,” Bangit said.
GCash now has more than 24 million customers as its monthly active users multiplied 10 times this year versus 2017. It also logs more than 400,000 social merchants in the peer-to-peer network, which is 3.5 times of registrations compared to the pre-enhanced community quarantine period. GCash has registered up to 900 percent transaction growth with P1 trillion annual gross value for 2020.
Bangit said they are now seeing a growing stay-at-home economy because of the consumers’ increasing time spent at home.
“Consumers are now spending their time pursuing their passion at the comforts of their own homes,” he said.
And even with social distancing, he said Filipinos are diverting their interest to the virtual world.
In fact, interest in online selling doubled coupled with the rise of online selling communities in Viber and Facebook.
“Socialization, nourishing communities, these are still not stopping even with the pandemic. Technology enabled us to reach out to our friends and loved ones and this is where people are converging nowadays,” he said. (JOB)