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RCBC to put up virtual digital bank in 2020
Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) on Wednesday unveiled plans to put up a virtual digital bank by 2020 to expand its account base via online and mobile banking platforms.
The digital bank will be established via a rural bank which RCBC plans to create before 2019 is out, RCBC executive vice president and chief innovation and inclusion officer Lito Villanueva said in a media roundtable.
“It is something that I think will happen by January,” he told reporters in Makati City.
RCBC intends to follow the Lhuillier group’s initiative in digital banking through Cebuana Lhuillier Rural Bank.
“We're following what Lhuillier is doing in so far as Lhuillier is concerned—get a digital banking approval and then operate,” Villanueva noted.
“In the Philippines, we have not seen any local digital bank yet … offering that as a separate proposition. Everything will be on cloud, so we won’t be using the core banking of the bank, but this will be cloud-based banking.”
In the same interview, Villanueva said RCBC is set to relaunch its mobile application on Friday, November 29, to include three more features—foreign exchange facility, time deposit, and government e-payments (EGovPay).
“Brick and mortar is no longer the way to go. That is the thinking now on how we can do digital,” he said.
RCBC has 2 million accounts of which 38% use its digital platform.
“New bank accounts by next year would be around 1 million. That’s a stretch already, the 1 million new-to-bank accounts,” said Villanueva, noting that more clients are expected to come on board via digital initiatives.
Such initiatives will be focused on DiskarTech, offering micro-insurance, microfinancing, bills payments, and airtime, and gaming e-load.
“We’re the first and only bank where the Liga ng Barangay issued a national resolution adopting DiskarTech as financial accelerator program,” Villanueva noted.
“The whole idea is that DiskarTech will be at the grass roots level,” he added, noting that the offer will … focus on the masses. —Jon Viktor Cabuenas/VDS, GMA News
