ECPay scheme will let OFWs pay bills from host countries

LEADING electronic commerce technology provider ECPay, which has been providing the backbone for an estimated P4 billion worth of billing transactions annually, is set to roll out later this year an international payment system, mainly targeting the overseas Filipino worker (OFW) market.

The main goal is to “empower the overseas Filipino worker to pay his or her family’s bills from the host country,” thus giving the worker a greater say in deciding how “his hard-earned money will be spent while he is abroad,” explained Jude Aguilar, president and CEO of Electronic Commerce Payments Inc.

“When implemented, this international bills payment service should be the first of its kind globally,” he added.

The company has quietly built, in the past eight years, “the largest e-payment network in the country with over 3,500 retail outlets nationwide,” according to Aguilar. These cover mostly prepaid load products such as for mobile phones; bills payments; and domestic remittance, meaning money sent within the country.

It processes, according to Aguilar, “about 50,000 transactions a day with an aggregate value of P4 billion annually. Many of our outlets operate 24/7 so we never sleep.”

ECPay’s range of merchant partners is so extensive that most people would probably never realize they’ve been tapping into its system, as their only link is to the business directly using the e-payment—for instance, Smart, Globe or Digitel for e-loads, Maynilad or Manila Water for water bills, or Sunlife or Philamlife for insurance payments.

Besides rolling out the global billing system for OFWs—hopefully by year-end—the company is also expanding its tieups with power companies. Right now it helps the Visayas Electric Cooperative (Veco) collect payment from 360,000 subscribers; soon, it will include Davao Light and Power Company, with 400,000 subscribers. Also in the works are tie-ups with power providers in Subic Freeport and Cotabato.

In a briefing, ECPay said it is also now accepting biller partnerships with a view to expanding its network—municipal utilities, schools, hospitals, realty companies, among others. “We leverage this advantage to encourage prospective billers to gain access to and benefit from ECPay’s extensive network of 3,500 e-payment outlets nationwide,” said Aguilar.

Besides that extensive network, flexibility in technology options is another advantage. From its main hub at the IBM Center Eastwood City Cyberpark in Libis, Quezon City, it affords merchants and customers alike quick and easy ways to transact because it can move the electronic transactions through various operating platforms, depending on what the former have or can work with—through terminals, point-of-sale (POS) system, the internet, or server to server.

The long-term goal is to expand the current P4-billion annual electronic transactions to P25 billion over the next three years. Of that, 40 percent of total payments are seen to come from prepaid loading, bills collection and domestic remittance; the rest, 60 percent, will be accounted for by new services like e-tickets, overseas bills payments and license/franchising activities. ECpay sees revenue from sales tripling as these new electronic products and services are rolled out.

The leading technology provider is a joint venture of Andresons Inc. of Megaworld’s Andrew Tan; and Payment One Inc. of the Pardo-Paterno partnership behind the 7/11 stores chain. Jose Pardo and Vicente Paterno were former Cabinet secretaries, Pardo handling the trade portfolio and Paterno, public highways and industry. He is also a former senator.