Smart Communications, the mobile arm of Philippine telco PLDT, is reportedly making moves to relaunch its original mobile money app, Smart Money, in an apparent bid to directly take on rival telco Globe Telecom’s GCash.
Smart launched Smart Money in 2003 in partnership with Banco de Oro (BDO). At the time, it was the country’s first and only mobile remittance service until Globe launched rival service GCash in 2004. In 2016, Smart Money was discontinued after the launch of Paymaya (later rebranded as Maya), a JV between PLDT and Rocket Internet to offer mobile payments.
According to a report from ABS-CBN on Friday, the Smart Money app has reappeared on Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store and is available for download. The app information page says Smart Money will support transactions for “Mobile Load” and “Send Money”. It can also be used for paying postpaid mobile, cable and internet services, as well as utilities, tolls and education fees.
However, the app is still inactive. Users must put their names on a waitlist to use the new Smart Money app, the report said.
The reappearance of Smart Money follows earlier remarks by Anastacio Martirez – who became Smart’s COO in September – that he said he intends to retake market share from GCash.
"We were the first in the industry to introduce Smart Money, ahead of GCash. Somewhere along the way something happened, but that’s not a problem,” he said onstage at last month's GSMA Digital Nation Summit, according to InsiderPH. “I want to bring it back.”
While PLDT and Smart haven’t elaborated on what a Smart Money relaunch would mean for Maya, the Inquirer’s “Biz Buzz” column notes that Maya’s business model has shifted beyond consumer-to-consumer payments after becoming one of the first six digital banks licensed by the country’s central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
Also, the column added, PLDT only holds a minority stake in Maya’s parent company, Voyager Innovations, which means Smart has little say in Maya’s direction.
GCash is the most popular mobile wallet app in the Philippines with around 94 million users. Paymaya had an estimated 44 million users by the end of 2021.
