The 72-year-old Victory Liner bus lines has announced here the launching on Dec. 21 of its card-based payment system through its Victory Liner Premiere prepaid VISA card.
In a press briefing here, Victory Liner officials said the reloadable card would serve as a credit and debit card that could be used not only to do online purchases, pay utility bills, and even send money from the Philippines or abroad.
“It is powered by VISA, the world’s largest and most trusted name in the global payment systems and backed by Metrobank, the country’s top credit card company, the Victory Liner Premiere prepaid VISA card is re-loadable with cash with as much as P10,000,” the bus liner officials said.
They stressed that “one can also use the card when abroad with over 40 million partner establishments of VISA, the world’s biggest and most trusted payment system.”
“With just P300 pesos, one can use the card after registering personal details in major Victory Liner bus terminals. Avail of discounts on major partner establishments of Victory Liner,” they also said.
“On December 21, expect the card to retail in major supermarkets, department stores and Victory Liner bus terminals,” they added.
Victory Liner officials noted a survey of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) indicating that 86 percent of Filipinos do not hold a savings account.
In BSP’s Consumer Finance Survey (CFS) in 2014, majority of Filipinos do not keep bank accounts because they don’t have enough monies to sustain those accounts, banks are faraway and some say, they don’t trust banking institutions.
They noted that, on the other hand, another study showed that an increasing number of Filipinos or one of every five Filipinos do online transactions.
“MasterCard’s study found that Filipinos turn to the Internet to purchase the following: airline tickets (38.4 percent), home appliances and electronic products (35.1 percent), clothing and accessories (31 percent), hotels (29.9 percent) and computer software (29.4 percent). Meanwhile, sites of apps stores (50.1 percent), music downloads (42.6 percent) and home appliances/electronic products (38.2 percent) draw the most web traffic, the study also showed,” the bus liner officials said.
They also noted that “VISA said nine out of 10 Filipino consumers do online shopping.
“The Visa eCommerce Consumer Monitor 2014 also reveals that the top reasons for online shopping are convenience (58 per- cent), price (47 percent), and deals,” they said.
“Like other Asian countries, the Philip- pines is slowly trans- morphing into a less cash-based payment system. With the rural areas slowly modernising, electronic payment system is an inevitable consequence of modernization and globalisation. The emergence of VISA, Mastercard and other global electronic payment brands such as Union Pay and Yazz in the Philippines is proof positive of the expected transition of the Philip- pines from cash-based into electronic payment systems,” they also said.
