BANK of the Philippine Islands (BPI) has partnered with Robinsons Retail Holdings, Inc. (RRHI) to allow the bank’s clients to withdraw cash for free using its mobile app from the latter’s store network.

BPI app users can now withdraw cash at select stores of brands under RRHI’s portfolio, including The Marketplace, Shopwise, Robinsons Supermarket, Robinsons Easymart, and No Brand by generating a barcode. This will also be available at Robinsons Department Store and Toys “R” Us soon.

There is a limit of five barcodes daily, with minimum and maximum withdrawal amounts of P100 and P10,000, respectively, per code.

The withdrawal service is currently available at 373 RRHI partner stores. BPI said it expects this number to increase to 460 by yearend.

“The added advantage to this is that customers today don’t have to make an extra trip to go and do their banking. When they do their shopping, when they do their groceries, when they go to the department store, when they do the necessary and fun things in life like shop, they can also do their banking. That is what I call a true partnership between BPI and Robinsons,” BPI President and Chief Executive Officer Jose Teodoro K. Limcaoco said at the launch event on Tuesday.

“We’re also proud to be the first supermarket to offer BPI withdrawal service. Using the BPI app, customers can withdraw cash in-store — fast, secure, and convenient. And soon, we’ll be adding cash deposit services to make the experience even more complete,” Robinsons Supermarket Corp. Managing Director Christine O. Tueres said.

Mr. Limcaoco said the cost of facilitating an in-store withdrawal is lower compared to deploying an automated teller machine (ATM), and this also expands BPI’s touchpoints while making transactions easier for its clients.

“Actually, the beauty of this is because it’s purely variable here. The cost to transact at Robinsons for the customer is free. But for us, our cost is actually cheaper when it’s done at Robinsons than if you were to do it at a branch or an ATM because a branch or an ATM has infrastructure and cash costs because we have to keep cash in that. At Robinsons, we don’t have infrastructure, and we don’t need to keep the cash,” he said. — AMCS

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR