POSIBLE.NET teams up with Grameen Foundation

POSIBLE.NET teams up with Grameen Foundation
POSIBLE.NET teams up with Grameen Foundation in digitizing financial services for all
Makati City, Philippines, April 19, 2018 – “If a woman is empowered, her children and her family will be better off. If families prosper, the village prospers, and eventually so does the whole country,” Chilean author and women’s rights activist Isabel Alende once said.
As if living by Alende’s message, POSIBLE.NET, a fintech company, and Grameen Foundation, a global nonprofit organization recently announced their collaboration in “The CAN Experience: Digitizing Financial Services For All” last April 12 at The Bayleaf Hotel, Intramuros, Manila. Attended by various stakeholders and regulators in the financial technology industry, Grameen Foundation reported that its track towards financial inclusion has been reaping substantial results for the benefit of both Filipino entrepreneurs and the underserved communities.
Grameen Foundation has created breakthrough solutions in the realm of financial, agricultural and health services. The organization uses digital technology and strengthens local partner networks to design and deliver solutions that open opportunity for women and families living in poverty. It has done just that for Asia, Latin America, Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The foundation began working in the Philippines since 2000, with the goal of catalyzing financial inclusion by enabling the poor, especially the Filipino women. In the report presented by Grameen Foundation, 36 percent of 1,634 local government units remain unserved by any banking facility while only 28.1 percent of the adult population owns an account at a financial institution – numbers that are reflective of the large gaps that exist between the financial services needs and the current formal supply available in the market.
This is where POSIBLE.NET and the foundation’s Community Agent Network (CAN) Program come in.
The CAN Program, launched in 2015, was conceived with the goal of improving the resilience of the financially unserved and underserved by establishing an agent network that is sustainable and scalable for various stakeholders such as fintech providers, merchants, and micro-entrepreneurs.
It aligns with the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) which sets a focus on enabling an environment where there is effective physical access to a wide range of financial services designed to cater to the evolving needs of the Filipino consumers.

CATALYZING FINANCIAL INCLUSION. Gigi Gatti, Grameen Foundation Regional Director for Asia
As of January 2018, Grameen Foundation has 1,896 agents nationwide, 75% of which is female who is about 40 years old and have had at least a year of college education.
“In many of our studies, we found out how women are better at handling money and finances than men. It is women’s attention to detail that makes them successful in activities that involve money—collecting, balancing and paying—these just come naturally to women,” Gatti said. “This will be beneficial, not only to the lives of these women but also to the economy.”
In the same report, Grameen announced that 88 percent of the agents onboarded during the CAN program use POSIBLE.NET as their fintech provider.
Furthermore, JG Puzon, CEO of POSIBLE.NET, reported that they now have 2,000 active retailers nationwide and has generated 3.8 million transactions amounting to P2 billion gross value.

DIGITIZING FINANCIAL SERVICES. JG Puzon, POSIBLE.NET CEO and President
Given this, Grameen Foundation Regional Director Gigi Gatti speaks highly of the partnership with POSIBLE.NET, which she describes as a “portable point-of-sale-like digital transaction device that was thoughtfully designed to meet the needs of consumers, agents, and enterprises.”
Puzon is also grateful for this team-up, as Grameen Foundation has been helping them with the research and analytics of their retailers’ profiles, opportunities, and challenges, even those in the farthest areas.
“The growth in the number of Ka-Posible retailers is remarkable and is still going uphill,” Puzon said. “I’m glad that we are reaching the outskirts of the country with Grameen Foundation as our partner and motivator.”
“With the help of POSIBLE.NET, we believe that we will be able to attain our goal of digitizing financial services for all,” Gatti added. “We do not stray away from the hard work of achieving financial inclusion, and that’s what makes this partnership work.”