More than 1.3 million sari-sari stores and market vendors, and an estimated 7 million informal and unregistered home-based microbusinesses stand to boost its additional income through digital transactions and sachet virtual banking services as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) rolled out their partnership for inclusive livelihood and social business amidst the pandemic.
The DiskarTech’s NegosyanTech program is the realization of RCBC and DTI’s agreement signed October last year to digitalize community-based microenterprises in every barangay nationwide through massive partnership and ecosystem building.
“As DTI partners with DiskarTech’s pioneering app, we welcome the complete suite of digital financial services that will indeed benefit our MSMEs. We are thankful that they will be able to help more than 1.3 million sari-sari stores and market vendors in over 42,000 barangays,” said DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez.
Through DTI’s over 1,000 Negosyo Centers and field offices nationwide, entrepreneurs will now be enables and empowered on how to grow their businesses by maximizing the features of DiskarTech, the Philippine’s first and only Taglish financial inclusion super app.
“DiskarTech would allow our constituents in every barangay the convenience of doing business at home in the safest and fastest manner,” said Liga ng mga Barangay national president Eden Chua-Pineda.
With the use of DiskarTech, sari-sari store and small business owners will now be able to accept digital payments through their own unique QR codes. These digital payments are deposited straight to their DiskarTech savings accounts that earn a competitive 3.25% annual interest.
DiskarTech’s NegosyanTech “paki-suyo” services using the mobile app will also provide new income streams to micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) by performing financial transactions on behalf of their customers. These transactions include top-up of airtime load, gaming pins, and pre-paid electricity (paki-load), bills payment (paki-bayad), fund transfer (paki-padala), purchase of insurance products (paki-bili), cash in and loan repayment (paki-hulog), and cash out or withdrawal (paki-kuha).
“Paki-suyo” has been showcased as among Filipino cultural values at the height of the lockdown showing one’s empathy or ‘malasakit’. Through DiskarTech, our entrepreneurs will be ahead of the game with innovative features available in the app as they display Filipinos’ brand of resiliency and ingenuity amidst the pandemic,” Lito Villanueva, executive vice president and chief innovation and inclusion officer of RCBC.
“DTI is also prioritizing MSMEs in preparing our country for the digital economy. This means increasing the number of MSMEs that are online and encouraging them in growing in the digital space,” Lopez added.
Interested entrepreneurs may contact any of DTI’s 1,147 Negosyo Centers nationwide to schedule their training.
“We are very much delighted of the warm acceptance of the public of DiskarTech given the exponential number of downloads and high engagement rate,” said RCBC president and CEO Eugene Acevedo.
DiskarTech will soon introduce loans marketplace catering to all sectors such as formal and informal workers, MSMEs, displaced overseas Filipinos, and smallholder farmers and fishers, among others in collaboration with government and private sector lenders. Through the DTI-DiskarTech collaboration, over 7 million informal and unregistered home-based microbusinesses would be enabled to register and enjoy greater access to affordable and responsive financing and use alternative channels for quick, convenient and transparent digital payments.
According to the Bankgo Sentral ng Pilipinas, half of payment transactions are expected to be digital by 2023.
DiskarTech recently made history as the fastest local finance app to reach one million downloads just 38 days from its market launch. For over a month now, it has kept its ranking as the top app among free finance mobile apps in Google Play Store and second in Apple App Store. RCBC is one of the leading universal banks accelerating digital transformation in the Philippines. It was recently recognized as the best digital bank in the Philippines at the 14th Annual Alpha Southeast Asia Best Financial Institution Awards 2020. Its digital products include RCBC mobile and online banking, handheld ATM Go mobile POS terminals, and DiskarTech, among others.
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