Porter's 5 forces Research Papers (original) (raw)

Cash has still been the preferred payment method of the Filipino majority—amounting to 51.3% of the population; while there were only 7.1% that prefer using mobile phone or app payments (TheNerve, 2019). Despite the cash-heavy... more

Despite the cash-heavy transactions of the country, a recent report from Oliver Wyman, an international management consulting firm, forecasts a gradual decrease of transaction share of cash but a steady increase of transaction share of e-money from 2018 to 2022 (Woods, George, & Pardiwalla, 2018) and TheNerve (2019) noted this as a 116% compound annual growth rate. This can be seen in the aforementioned 2018 3rd quarter Financial Inclusion report by BSP (2018) which noted a growth of 6 million pesos (or 9.2%) in inflow transactions and 18 million pesos (or 6%) in outflow transactions from 2016 to 2017.

The motivation for innovation in the e-Money industry can be attributed to the power of the consumers as they are the primary users of the technology and ultimately, their adoption would dictate the success or failure of the innovation. Although it is also relevant to point that merchant adoption and the whole ecosystem may also influence the motivation for innovation, in the end, consumer adoption would still outweigh the other.

Numerous researches have focused on studying consumer adoption to identify the antecedents or drivers that influence technological adoption by consumers. Studies concluded that consumer adoption factors of e-Money technology are security, cost, convenience, characteristics of mobile service provider, characteristics of mobile payment vendor, characteristics of mobile technology, disposition of trust, and disposition of culture. These factors provide basis to the development of radical or incremental innovations in the e-Money industry. The high mobile penetration and tech-savviness of Filipinos also makes the Philippines a mobile money innovation hub. GSMA noted that the dramatic rise in smartphone adoption has been one of the factors in the increasing adoption of Filipinos (Pasti, 2019) despite the country’s lagging Internet speed.

The e-money has several use cases that drive its economic forces across the country’s economy. It ranges from airtime load top-up, bills payment, online shopping, transportation payment, insurance payment, ticket purchase, social media payments, QR code payment, NFC payment, e-money transfer, to B2C payment (Miroshnichenko, 2015). A survey report conducted by TheNerve (2019) accounted online shopping as the top use case of e-money; followed by bills payment and e-money transfer. Moreover, GSMA listed “domestic remittance needs” as one of the six primary conditions that contributed to the development of e-money in the Philippines (Hasnain, 2016). The development of this condition is due to the common Filipino practice wherein the breadwinner of the family goes to a highly urbanized region, like Metro Manila, and regularly sends money back to his/her home province (TheNerve, 2019).

GSMA (2016) also highlighted the low banking penetration as another driver of e-money in the Philippines. In 2017, the banked penetration rate stands at 34.5%. This means that 70 million or 65% of the Filipinos are still unbanked—a large avenue to drive financial inclusion through e-money.

The introduction of e-Money technology like G-Cash and Smart Money in the early 2000s in itself was a radical innovation and could possibly become a threat to banking and credit card technology. This technology fosters financial inclusion in the market as it taps both the banked and unbanked users. One doesn’t need a bank account in order to use e-Money as it utilizes a user’s mobile phone through SIM-based remittances and micro-payments, making use of a vast network of agents, such as sari-sari stores, to facilitate the cash- in and cash-out transactions.

Incremental innovations have thereafter followed with the introduction of phone applications or ‘apps’ that complement this technology by allowing users to monitor their balances, pay bills and even remit money (P2P) on their own through the apps.

The move for e-Money providers to transform into the ultimate lifestyle super app also encourages incremental innovation in terms of apps’ program and features. This new model is when existing apps branch out to other services apart from their initial intended service. A prime example would be Grab, which started as a ride-hailing app and has recently expanded their services to courier and food delivery.

Competitors dominate the e-money market by having the following characteristics: have existing partnerships, have an existing customer base, can be easily integrated in other platforms, have little to no transaction, convenience or additional fees, and offer rewards, incentives, or rebates.

Alternatives for mobile phones as storage devices for e-Money are also being introduced in the market. Biochips are devices embedded in a person’s body, often under the skin, which stores your e-Money, train tickets and can even act as keys to doors (Agence France-Presse, 2018). There may come a time when biotechnology will be the centralized adaptation of both the biotechnology and fin-technology industries, which may greatly affect the e- money value chain.

The industry value chain can be categorized into two major areas: one is content, another is infrastructure and services. Under the content area, there are three main parts: content creation, content packaging, and market making. Infrastructure and services also have three main parts: mobile transport, mobile services and delivery transport, and mobile interface and application.

Different firms in the Philippines, banks and non-banks, have adopted e- money. They compete for high API integration, updated infrastructures, an omnichannel banking strategy, customer convenience, strong security, and best blockchain technology adaptation.

E-money has different suppliers involved in the industry, including network operators, technology suppliers, authoring tools, application development tools, and mobile service technologies. Currently, cloud computing is the most popular and advanced tool in using e-money.

On a business standpoint, the only barriers to entry are the required high paid-up capital and the required high-level of technical skills. After passing through the said barrier, since the Philippines has a good enabling environment, the next battle will be competing with incumbent players in the industry—having a portion of the market share pie.