Innovation

Creating cash agad partners helps unbanked in the Philippines

Photo provided by iStock

October 19, 2020

Cash Agad is a service provided by the Philippine bank, BDO, to give those in rural, far flung or unbanked communities access to banking and ATMs, according to a Malaya Business Insight report.

By partnering with stores and shops already established in the community, BDO creates community-based ATM terminals by giving a shop owner a POS terminal for transacting locally-issued ATM cards, whether debit or prepaid, from any bank, and facilitates basic transactions like cash withdrawals and balance inquiries.

Krystal Bantic, a grocery store owner in a rural area of the Philippines, is a BDO Cash Agad partner agent. During the pandemic, Bantic's store became a popular place for cash and groceries. To replenish cash reserves Bantic contacted the local government to arrange transportation and replenish the reserves as her grocery store was the only cash source for local residents.

"If the country's economy is ever going to bounce back from the pandemic, it will take all of us —big businesses, MSMEs [micro small medium enterprises], and both urban and rural communities and their local governments—to help each other and do our part. There's a certain inspiration, a beautiful sort of hope when you see communities working together to rise up and recover from a crisis. BDO is doing its part in helping communities recover economically through the Cash Agad network," Jim Nasol, head of agency banking, BDO Unibank, told the news outlet.