Qatar OFWs to get financial services access via CWallet-PLDT partnership

CWallet, Qatar’s "first and only" mobile application to facilitate banking via blockchain technology, has teamed up with PLDT, the Philippines’ largest fully integrated telco, to help Filipinos in Qatar and in the Middle East get access to financial services.CWallet is an innovative financial services app created by Qatar-based fintech startup, C Wallet Services. The startup will be officially announcing its successful investment round “by the first quarter of 2022 or earlier,” CWallet CEO and founder Michael Javier told Gulf Times yesterday.According to the PLDT website, CWallet enables PLDT’s international arm PLDT Global Corporation (PGC) access to e-commerce platforms or digital marketplaces and allow purchases online even without having a bank account or a credit card. The partnership also allows users to conveniently send cross-border payments and remittances.Under this partnership, over 300,000 overseas Filipinos in Qatar would be able to tap CWallet’s Filipino-centric digital products and services, such as mobile load, electronic gifts, gaming pins, and bills payment through PGC’s digital platform, Vortex. The service will also soon expand to the rest of the Middle East and in Africa, the website further stated.CWallet is a fintech startup incubated by the Digital Incubation Centre (DIC) under the then Ministry of Transport and Communications, and is funded by the Qatar Science and Technology Park’s (QSTP) Product Development Programme, as well as the Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC), a Qatar Development Bank (QDB) initiative.Javier said: “It is our mission to empower and enable individuals in the region by giving solutions to low-income and unbanked migrant workers, allowing them to access financial services that are currently unavailable to them. Both CWallet and PLDT Global share the same values in providing the best services to OFWs in the Middle East and the rest of the world.”“Now more than ever, we strive to remain at the forefront of keeping overseas Filipinos closer to home through technology. This partnership with CWallet allows us to bridge the distance between our kababayans and their families in the Philippines with digital solutions that help them take care of their loved ones even from afar,” said Albert V Villa-Real, president and CEO at PLDT Global.According to PLDT, this initiative is part of a broader PLDT programme aligned to help the country achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal No 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, and underscores the company’s focus area of connecting Filipinos everywhere. Caption: CWallet CEO and founder Michael Javier