Digital-only GoTyme Bank on Monday bared optimism in catching the distinction as the first among lenders to be accredited under the massively popular coin deposit machine program of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)
None of the country’s banks, whether digital or bricks-and-mortar, have been granted the privilege thus far, according to monetary board member Bernadette Romulo-Puyat. The coin deposit program aims to harness the power of millions of pesos worth of coins that lie idle in most households around the country.
But GoTyme Bank co-CEO Albert Tinio said the digital-only lender openly seeks the distinction and that its management team is working to secure the privilege.
According to Tinio, the distinction is part of the broader program of making the lender a “phygital” entity or one with the attributes of a digital bank but at the same time retain some of the aspects of the physical institution they represent.
GoTyme Bank’s partnership with Euronet, an automated teller machine or ATM operator, has started the transformation that allows its depositors to withdraw money from any of their money machines, Tinio said.
But as a BSP-accredited coin deposit entity, the many millions of GoTyme Bank depositors who use the coin deposit machines have the convenience of channeling their loose change directly into their accounts, Tinio explained.
At the moment, the more than P500 million worth of coins captured by the BSP coin deposit machines are channeled directly into Maya and GCash e-money accounts of the competing telecommunications companies Smart Communications and Globe Telecom although the monetary authorities recently acknowledged considering changes in the regulations.
“Hopefully, GoTyme gets it first,” Tinio said, noting that some of coin deposit machines receiving lots of attention from the public are located in some of the Gokongwei Group-owned malls.
