Some Great Misconceptions about GCash

Let’s get things straight about GCash, as misconceptions and misinformation tend to spread far and wide.

I usually read up on GCash-related groups on Facebook, and sometimes I read something about GCash that is downright not true, but a lot of people believe in it because there is no voice of reason otherwise.

They may have been encountering a problem with GCash but because of the poor help and support GCash is offering right now, a lot of them just resign to hearsay.

But it shouldn’t end in this. I believe that people should always question what they read online, especially when it comes to things that bring our emotions up. This is what fuels fake news.

And as such, to combat this, I’ve decided to write this post to correct some misconceptions regarding GCash that we typically hear from people.

Misconception No. 1: GScore does whatever it wants

We see this post often in a FB group thread because a certain user notices that his GScore is steadily going down. Because of frustration, he brings out the notion that “Globe is controlling GScore to make people follow a certain behavior”.

Firstly, there are two things you can do about this:

1. You can choose to ignore it. Your GCredit amount does not go down when your GScore does anyway.
2. You can choose to actively try to make it higher so that you can borrow a higher amount from GCredit.

The truth is, GScore is under an algorithm that follows a mix of rules-based logic coupled with machine learning. The rules are understandably not communicated to the public to prevent tampering. Unfortunately due to this algorithm being unknown, anyone can put whatever interpretation they have to justify what is happening to their GScore.

To help with your dwindling scores, I’ve created a post here to assist you in raising your individual numbers. I based it on my actual experience using GScore. This post condenses all of the best practices I’ve learned and shared with you. When I wrote that specific post, my GScore was 739. Now it is 750. It hasn’t gone down since.

Misconception 2: GCash is solely owned by Globe

There is a bit of truth in this since the GCash idea started within Globe. But “GCash” is actually a name of a product. The actual company that owns GCash is called “G-Xchange, Inc” and this started out as a Globe subsidiary. Once GCash became big enough, Globe decided to put up a separate holding company to handle all of its fintech initiatives, and this holding company became Mynt, Inc. Mynt is primarily owned by Globe Telecom and also by Ayala Corporation.

Under Mynt Inc, Fuse Lending was established to handle loans, while G-Xchange handled digital wallets and payments. Then in 2017, Ant Financial (Alibaba) came in and bought a 45% stake in the company. This made it so Mynt was owned three ways now by Ant Financial, Globe, and Ayala Corp. In 2021, there was another funding round, and Globe and Ant both have 35%, Bow Wave has 14%, and Ayala has 5%. The latest shareholders are Tech investor Itai Tsiddon and U.S. VC Amplo Ventures which hold the rest.

When Ant Financial came in, they also brought along their Alicloud and Alipay technologies into the company.

Actually, in China, the two biggest digital wallets are Alipay (owned by Ant Financial) and WeChatPay (owned by Tencent).

This is also why as of mid-late 2019, there have been a lot of technical issues regarding GCash. This is because they are in the middle of migrating to the Alibaba platform. They need to overhaul the existing system. Additionally, they also need to train the current employees, then migrate all of the existing data slowly into the platform, while maintaining uptime and reliability.

GCash was able to roll out distinctly new features quickly like GScore, GCredit, GCash Forest, and Vouchers because of this. These technologies have already been implemented in China already.

Also early this year, Tencent invested in Voyager Innovations, the operator of Paymaya and also a subsidiary of Smart. So we can potentially see the same problems we have with GCash because they will also need to migrate their system.

Don’t get me started on the misconception that Jack Ma “has control” of GCash wallets —that is blatantly false, because of the next item on my list.

Misconception 3: GCash employees steal money from its users via “inside jobs”

GCash is regulated by the BSP and is licensed under the Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) license, and GCash users are protected by the AMLA (Anti Money Laundering Act of 2001). Basically, this law prevents any dirty money (money from criminal activities) from circulating in our financial system.

A side effect of this is that all users need to have their information saved (KYC or Know-Your-Customer) as each transaction should be able to be tracked by any specific user. This is why GCash has verification levels that allow the unlocking of features depending on the user’s level. Actually, all financial apps (Paymaya, Coins.ph, Grabpay, etc.) have this in some form, since this is required by law.

Because of this, personal data security is given the utmost importance. No one should know your MPIN and OTP but yourself and the system is built around that premise. If any data breach were to happen, the employee would be penalized and most likely would also be charged. G-Xchange as an operator would also be given a stiff fine, or worse, be also be put to the court.

Something that contributes to this perhaps is the proliferation of scammers that impersonate GCash employees. They use social hacking to get their victims’ credentials and steal their money.

So to stop this from happening, realize that your MPIN and OTP are the keys to your kingdom. No GCash employee will ever ask you to provide these.

Misconception 4: GCash is easily “hackable”

GCash is designed to be technically secure. This is why we have OTP and MPIN challenges every time we cash out or cash in. Usually, the weak link in this chain is the user itself. This is actually what the “hackers” exploit the most. We see different GCashCare clones in Messenger every day trying their best to get personal information and MPINs from users.

GCash has already decommissioned GCashCare in Facebook Messenger. They now have a dedicated site for support (help.gcash.com). So any FB message from a “GCashCare” is most likely someone who wants to dupe you of your hard-earned cash.

Here is a tip: if you find calling 2882 really wastes your time, try getting your support through the chatbot on the support site instead. There usually is a person behind the chatbot answering questions and offering support. They’ve also already made their services available 24/7.

Unfortunately, sometimes the hackers succeed and they are able to get your funds. This is also why GCash established Customer Protect. Once you think you’ve been duped of your money, you need to file your application as soon as possible to be able to get your money back.

Misconception 5: GCash is “not safe” and is not reliable enough

There is some truth to this, but not in the way you can imagine. GCash leverages and is dependent on a lot of different service providers under its wing. So often it is not GCash at fault.

For example, SMSs are provided by Globe Labs. Sometimes crucial text messages can get delayed.

Other examples:
7-11 Cliqq cash-ins are due to ECPay.
Meralco bills run through Bayad Center.
Debit card cash-ins are from Paynamics.
Bank Transfers are powered by Instapay that go through Bancnet.

If any of these services fail or have an outage, the blame usually goes to GCash and all it can do is to say sorry to users. GCash as an institution can only follow up with the SLAs (service level agreements) of each provider.

Given this, there are also times when GCash does mess up, for example with GCredit issues, nondispense of cash in ATMs, or failed logins. In these cases, GCash is trying to manage the level of services they provide.

They have been more proactive in setting up maintenance pages if you notice. This is to prevent fund loss for users since it is always better to prevent, rather than resolve issues. Also, they’ve dedicated more people to handle system-wide issues as they happen.

The reliability question has been a question of scale. GCash has transitioned into the Alipay payments platform. After this, GCash is poised to be able to handle more transactions as more and more people use the app (80 million users as of mid-2023).

This is why there have been advisories lately that there will be technical issues from time to time. Any change is really a very big and delicate endeavor for any company.

However, for the most part, the majority of GCash users do not have issues with using the app. It is just social media can really magnify some bad news which unfortunately also causes some misinformation.

The bottom line is — it is still safe to use the GCash app and it still works as intended.

Misconception 6: Money from blacklisted accounts is pocketed by GCash

Blacklisted accounts are effectively frozen. GCash cannot liquidate those as they don’t own those accounts. GCash employees cannot pocket the money from these accounts as they will be liable for fraud.

The main question is how did those accounts got blacklisted in the first place? Perhaps there was something that triggered it, for example, large sums of money going to a wallet. GCash is mandated to follow AMLA (Anti Money Laundering Act) and any suspicious transactions are automatically flagged for checking.

In Summary

I’ve talked about some misconceptions regarding GCash:

1. GScore does not have a mind of its own as it follows a set of rules. If this bothers you, then you can use my post as a guide to increase your score.
2. GCash is only partly owned by Globe, the other owners of GCash are Ant Financial (Alipay) and Ayala. So Mynt is not really Globe — meaning any Globe employee is not affiliated with Mynt in any way.
3. Mynt employees do not have access to your MPIN, and even if they did, they would be incarcerated by law and GCash would most likely be no more.
4. No security system is foolproof, GCash included. More often than not the hackers do not hack GCash, they hack people. People can be gullible and can be manipulated to give up their personal information.
5. GCash does have technical issues, but for the most part, it works as intended and the vast majority of users are using it right now.
6. Blacklisted accounts are frozen accounts. GCash cannot pocket any amount within those accounts as it is tantamount to fraud. Better to ask why you’ve been blacklisted and work with GCash to be able to release your funds.

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