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Peppermint forms strategic partnership with MASS-SPECC - TechInvest Magazine Online

Written by Staff Writers | Sep 18, 2023 11:25:46 AM

Peppermint Innovation Ltd (ASX: PIL) has signed a five-year strategic, long-term partnership agreement with the oldest and largest regional co-operative federation in the Philippines, MASS-SPECC Cooperative Development Centre.

The agreement will see Peppermint deliver MASS-SPECC’s Pinoy Coop Mobile App by providing end-to-end services, via white-labelling the company’s EMI wallet and mobile banking application and bizmoto managed services as MASS-SPECC’s Pinoy Coop Mobile brand.

The ‘Pinoy Coop Mobile’ will be tagged “Built on Bizmoto I Powered by Peppermint.”

Phase 1 of Peppermint’s Strategic Partnership Agreement with MASS-SPECC will allow Pinoy Coop Mobile App users to complete ‘cash-in’ and ‘cash-out’ transactions, transfer funds directly between the Pinoy Coop Mobile wallet and Pinoy Coop ATM accounts, as well as access other financial services such as bill payment, eLoad for mobile phones or transfer of funds to another bank account or EMI wallet via InstaPay and PESONet.

Phase 2 of the agreement provides for Peppermint and MASS-SPECC to ‘exert best efforts’ to discuss and agree on the integration of other Bizmoto services such as, but not limited to, Loan Application, Monitoring of Loan Application, Co-op Service Logistics/Appointment, QR code PH functionality, domestic and international remittance, and e-wallet service connection for other Co-operative federations. It also provides for both parties to discuss possible collaboration around other proprietary Bizmoto services such as, but not limited to, BizmoLoan, BizmoTinda and BizmoGo.

Peppermint signed a five-year agreement with MASS-SPECC on October 2022 to provide its EMI financial services to power the back-end of MASS-SPECC’s Pinoy Coop Mobile App. However, after unforeseen and unfortunate delays around the front-end development MASS-SPECC engaged Peppermint as a strategic partner to support their digital transformation strategy and deliver to their members a complete Pinoy Coop Mobile App.

MASS-SPECC continues to grow their services to their Co-operative and individual members and up until August of this year, 2023, has processed cash withdrawals, bills payment and fund transfer transactions of Php 14.4 billion or circa A$390 million in value.

Today’s announcement is extremely positive for Peppermint and MASS-SPECC. It ensures we control the end-to-end execution of the mobile technology solution and therefore the delivery of the Pinoy Coop Mobile App in direct partnership with MASS-SPECC,” Peppermint Managing Director and CEO, Chis Kain, said.

“The time delays on delivery of the initial project have been extremely frustrating for both Peppermint and MASS-SPECC, but both parties have remained committed to delivering a mobile technology solution that delivers accessible digital financial inclusion to every MASS-SPECC member Co-operative and individual member. This strategic partnership agreement delivers just that, and we are in a much- improved position now than we were previously to make this a reality.

“The economics of the MASS-SPECC partnership are very compelling for Peppermint, with the company forecast to earn on average 10c for every completed transaction via the Pinoy Coop Mobile App. This is in addition to revenue the Company will earn from delivering the app under licence, its full deployment and ongoing service and maintenance for up to five years.

“MASS-SPECC has approximately 1.6 million members, so we are incredibly keen to see the Pinoy Coop App deployed as soon as practically possible. We expect to deploy the Pinoy Coop Mobile App by the end of this year.

“We are also in ongoing discussions with MASS-SPECC about their vision and strategic plan for the co- ops and their members, and how we can collaborate to deliver their vision utilising our EMI licence and established mobile app fintech platform.

“We welcome a strengthened strategic business relationship and one that has the potential to deliver additional services to members and revenue for stakeholders.

“Peppermint’s strategy is sharply focused on revenue-generation from two key ‘silos’ – our bizmoLoan operations, as well as licence and transaction fees earned from our EMI wallet services and mobile app platform ‘white-label’ solution for third parties.

“The MASS-SPECC agreement represents a significant milestone and is a key component in Peppermint’s strategic, dual revenue-generating model, in terms of revenue generation from EMI Wallet services and a mobile app white label solution.”