Smart Communications Inc. has signed a mobile-payments deal with Central Negros Electric Cooperative Inc., the Philippines-based company announced on Jan. 31.
Central Negros customers now may pay their electricity bills via Smart Money, a MasterCard-branded reloadable payment card they can link to a mobile phone, according to the statement. Users may register for the service via text message. After they receive their Smart Money card by mail, they can link it to the service, also by text message.
Consumers may spend up to 20,000 Philippine pesos (US$428 or 309 euros) per day with their Smart Money cards and transfer up to 10,000 Philippine pesos daily to other Smart Money users.
“Via their smart mobile phones, consumers simply have to key in the [Central Negros] biller code and the total amount due using Smart Money’s bills-payment menu,” the statement said. Some 45 other biller also use Smart Money.
According to Smart’s Web site, consumers may use the Smart Money card at more than 25 million MasterCard retail establishments worldwide, at 2.2 million online retail stores and at any Smart Money-accredited merchant.
Central Negros is one of the 119 electric cooperatives in the Philippines (
