Smart partners with Saudi bank

The mobile phone network unit of publicly listed telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has partnered with a Saudi Arabia-based bank to expand the latter’s electronic money transfer service. Smart Communications, Inc., in a statement, Monday said that its Smart Money platform would enable National Commercial Bank (NCB), the largest bank in the Middle East, to launch an international remittance service targeted at Filipino migrant workers. NCB’s Quick Pay Remittance Service would tap a market of around 1.2 million Filipinos in Saudi Arabia for the delivery of funds to Smart Money accounts in the Philippines by phone, internet, remittance centers, cash deposit machines, over-the-counter transactions and fund transfers via automated teller machines. Smart said the funds would be transferred at the speed and with the convenience of a text message and can be withdrawn nationwide from over 7,000 ATMs, 100 Smart Wireless Centers and thousands of third-party Smart Money partners. Smart President and Chief Executive Officer Napoleon L. Nazareno said the partnership would allow the local mobile phone service provider to tap an increased market for its Smart Money service. "The exclusive business partnership between Smart and NCB for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is very strategic as it boosts Smart’s efforts to offer mobile money transfer services in various regions of the world particularly in the Middle East where there are large numbers of Filipinos," Mr. Nazareno said. NCB was described as having total assets of $55.7 billion and paid-up capital of $4 billion. As of end-2007, about 300,000 of its 2,000,000 customers comprised Filipino payroll accounts. NCB Head of Remittance and Mobile Payments Omar M. Hashem, meanwhile, said the electronic money transfer service would be later expanded to other countries. "Initially, this will be available to Filipino migrant workers sending to Philippines, but will eventually be available to other nationalities sending money to their respective beneficiary-countries," he said. Mediaquest Holdings Inc., owned by the Beneficiary Trust Fund of PLDT, has a minority stake in BusinessWorld.