From telco to ‘techco’: the Philippines’ Globe seeks next unicorn after GCash success

This is the first installment of a two-part series on Globe Telecom’s tech ecosystem. Read part two here.

Tricycle drivers in the province of Pampanga, a province northwest of Manila, accept GCash as a cashless payment option / Photo credit: Globe

GCash has achieved what most Philippine fintech companies can only dream of.

In 2021, the mobile wallet was valued at over US$2 billion.

Launched by Globe Telecom in 2004, GCash catapulted to prominence as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred a transition to cashless payments.

One could describe its ascent as one part tenacity and one part serendipity: GCash, launched as a money transfer offering at a time of 2G cellular services that was characterized by voice and SMS, was way ahead of its time.

Notably, its launch preceded that of M-Pesa, the Kenyan SMS-based money transfer service that is often regarded as a pioneer of payments tech in emerging markets.

GCash’s success only came years later, when a combination of increasing smartphone penetration and ubiquity of 4G cellular services – coupled with the tech knowhow lent by strategic investor Ant Group – gave it the ability to scale.

Having integrated with Ant Group’s tech platform “right before the pandemic,” GCash was “well-prepared to take on the scale that was going to come our way. And, the rest is history,” Globe executive director, president, and CEO Ernest Cu said at the 2023 Singapore FinTech Festival last November.

Since the pandemic, GCash’s user base has tripled. The app, which offers lending, investing, and insurance services on top of digital payments, currently has over 80 million registered users in the Philippines – approximately 80% of the archipelago’s population. The e-wallet can also be used in some overseas markets.

GCash can be used as a payment option in selected overseas markets as part of its partnership with Alipay+ / Photo credit: Globe

“We’ve become a verb. I think that’s a good description of our impact in society,” GCash president and CEO Martha Sazon said in November.

From telco to “techco”

Globe’s digital ambitions, however, don’t end with GCash.

Leveraging Globe’s advantage

A large cash cushion