Filipinos can now access their money and send payments from anywhere regardless of whether they have a bank account or not after Facebook partnered with mobile money providers PayMaya and GCash to offer users an option to pay via the Messenger app.
Through the partnership, Messenger users will be able to view their balance, send money, and pay bills through Messenger.?Users can also purchase discounted prepaid load from their phone.
Ginger Baker, Facebook product manager, said the goal of the partnership is to ?amplify the reach and impact of mobile money providers by enabling tools that allow them to connect people with the services and friends they care about.?
According to the World Bank, less than one-third of Filipinos currently have an account for financial transactions.
Baker said the integration with Messenger gives Filipinos an easy way to create a new account for daily transactions. Messenger is known as one of the country’s top messaging app.
Users who would like to create a new account can do so from the app itself, while those with already existing accounts can link to the app.
To start a transaction, users just need to search for @PayMayaOfficial or @GCashOfficial on Messenger. A chatbot will then guide the user on the available menu options. Currently, this feature is only supported on Android devices.
