Even before COVID-19 shook the country, there has been an active push from both the government and private sectors to expand and digitalize financial services to benefit Filipinos from all walks of life. The new normal, however, provides a greater impetus to innovate financial services amidst a backdrop of community quarantines, mobility restrictions, and the vast shift to online activities.
Founded by its commitment to make payments and other financial services more accessible, convenient and secure, CIS Bayad Center, Inc. has been building strategic alliances with enterprises that share their mission. Earlier this year, Bayad Center partnered with GrowSari, Bank of the Philippine Islands, and Radius Telecoms, Inc.
As the most trusted payments authority in the country, Bayad Center currently has 39,000 payment touchpoints nationwide. This will grow bigger through its partnership with GrowSari, a start-up dedicated to empowering and doubling the earnings of millions of Filipino sari-sari small businesses. GrowSari has over 20,000 active sari-sari store partners, which they support by providing store owners platforms to digitally procure goods for their stores at better prices and free delivery. GrowSari also provides access to working capital to help store owners grow and sustain their micro-enterprise. With this partnership, more customers don’t need to travel far to settle their monthly obligations as Bayad Center’s payment services are available in all Growsari sari-sari stores in communities across the country.
Responding to urgent needs and lifestyle changes that emerged during the pandemic, Bayad Center keeps growing its network of billing partners, going beyond utilities and including more services such as remittances. Millions of Filipino families depend on remittances from loved ones working overseas. Bayad Center’s recent partnership with Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), one of the biggest banks in the country, enables any sender to process remittances or payments from any Bayad Center channel into a BPI or BPI Family Savings bank account in almost real-time, even beyond banking hours and weekends. Moreover, BPI individual and corporate clients will be able to receive money remittances or payments directly to their bank accounts from third parties via any Bayad Center branch.
Intensifying its data security capacity to ensure customers’ information is safe, Bayad Center formalized an alliance with Radius Telecoms, Inc., the only telecommunications carrier in the Philippines that delivers its services on an end-to-end full fiber optic network across multiple cities and municipalities in the country. This partnership with Radius provides an added layer of security to Bayad Center’s connection, powered by the three-way data encryption of its Radius Cloud Express (RCE) solution, powered by NetFoundry. Processing more than 10 million transactions monthly, data security is mission-critical for Bayad Center’s onsite and online platform. Getting Radius on board reinforces Bayad Center’s capability to protect each transaction made by consumers.
These partnerships are part of the legacy of Bayad Center’s former leader, Manuel L. Tuason, who championed the company’s online and onsite platform to bring real value to Filipinos working hard to pay their bills and fulfill their dreams for the family. Bayad Center’s newly appointed President and CEO, Lawrence Y. Ferrer, advances this mission expressing that, “Given that we are now living in challenging times, we at Bayad Center, as well as our partners, are even more determined to stay in attuned to the financial service needs of our customers across the country. We are all working together to create a robust payment ecosystem that is responsive to changing social and economic norms.”
Customers can expect that Bayad Center will continue to reinforce its onsite and online business to maintain its position as the most dependable end-to-end payment solutions provider for Filipinos.
