racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

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Once a month, 24-year-old Jane Manarang drops by the McDonald’s (MCD ) in her busy Manila neighborhood. But she’s not there for a burger and fries. Instead, she is stopping by to cash an electronic check. Her husband, a teller at Forex International in Hong Kong, sends a portion of his salary to Manarang using a new mobile-phone-based cash remittance service called Smart Padala. His Hong Kong remittance company sends a text message to Jane’s phone, crediting the money to her account. Then she transfers the credit to McDonald’s cell-phone account through her phone, and Mickey D gives her the money, taking a percentage of the amount cashed as a fee. It’s a great deal for Manarang and her husband, Glenn, because it costs much less than the $5 Glenn would pay for a wire transfer. For amounts above $180, Manarang gets a free Big Mac meal to boot. ‘It’s so fast,’ marvels Manarang. ‘I receive a text message, and I can quickly get cash.’

That kind of innovative service has made the Philippines the king of text messaging worldwide. Filipinos send an average of 200 million messages daily, or 2.4 per capita. In fact, many Filipinos ignore the voice capabilities of their phones and use their handsets almost exclusively for texting. Nearly 38% of sales in the Philippine cellular market come from text, compared with 1% to 2% in the U.S.

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J. Angelo Racoma is a technology journalist and blogger. See more of his blog posts here at racoma.com.ph, commentaries at racoma.net, and Twitter feed at @jangelo.