MANILA – An aggregator of digital services and an upgrade to small businesses, POSIBLE.NET was officially launched Wednesday at Holiday Inn and Suites, Makati City.
With over 1,600 retailers nationwide to date, POSIBLE.NET looked ahead to a year full of possibilities, going with the theme “Empowering the Filipino MSMEs of Today.”
POSIBLE.NET, founded two years ago, currently offers more than 300 digital services to over a million Filipino consumers and has already generated close to P2 billion worth of transactions.
“We have been hitting milestones since we started operating in 2016,” said JG Puzon, President and CEO of POSIBLE.NET. “And we are excited for what 2018 has to offer to our growing number of retailers, consumers and partners, and I believe that now is the perfect time to tell everyone about how we are empowering the Filipino MSMEs.”
From bricks to clicks
POSIBLE.NET is a digital transactions platform that is designed to help small and medium entrepreneurs in the country, making it the preferred partner of sari-sari stores, laundromats, bakeries, barber shops, and other community-based businesses.
Accessed via the user-friendly POSIBLE device, its comprehensive services include utility bills payment, select government fees, money services, micro-insurance, mobile loading, online gaming credits, and ticketing. Each transaction also comes with a confirmation receipt, gaining the trust of consumers.
“I am very happy about the change that it brought to my store,” said Venus Santos, a sari-sari store owner. “Now I can offer digital services that bring convenience to my customers.” Santos has been a retailer in Paco, Manila for the past two years.
Empowering the MSMEs
The POSIBLE team has been together for the last decade and is responsible for several pioneering innovations in the field of telecommunications and mobile commerce.
“The platforms we built over the years brought financial technology to many communities, but still, only the big businesses were able to realize the advantages,” said Puzon. “Our goal is to bring the innovations to the broader base of Filipinos, a type of inclusion wherein every Filipino enjoys the convenience and benefits of emerging technology.”
Making financial inclusion happen
According to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), up to 36 percent of towns and cities in the Philippines still do not have access to banks and it takes 21 minutes on average for a consumer to go to the nearest financial access point. Given this, Puzon believes POSIBLE.NET plays an important role in attaining financial inclusion in the Philippines by bringing digital transactions closer to all communities.
“We are working to make the technology readily available to all barangays and community stores so that they would be able to do digital transactions and spur economic growth,” he said. “Our objective is to penetrate more areas, especially those where banks and payment centers are minimal or nonexistent.”
As a result, POSIBLE.NET was recognized as one of the Top 15 ventures in Asia at the DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge held in Singapore last September 2017, an annual competition to determine the most innovative ideas and enterprises. It was the sole Philippine entry in the Enterprise category.
