This pandemic has made us realized that cashless transaction is now becoming the most preferred option because it’s safer, faster, and seamless. Using the mobile wallet has become the new norm, and any news and changes with regards to this always cause a big reaction to its users. A few days ago, GCash recently announced a new convenience fee for cashing in using linked Visa/MasterCard bank cards starting July 6, 2020, amounting to 2.58% of the total amount to be cashed in for every transaction.

As GCash is the most competitive mobile wallet in the market today, this news was met with a lot of questions to its users. Here’s what you need to know:

Pass-on fees by GCash’s card payment partners

This pass on the fee to customers are being charged by GCash’s CARD PAYMENT PARTNERS. This is a DIRECT CHARGE that will be added for each cash-in via bank card transaction in your GCash app. So if you cash in P1000 in your GCash wallet, you will be charged a convenience fee of P25.80 bringing the total to P1025.80

What GCash users should know is that the 2.58% convenience fee being implemented by GCash are charges that will go directly to the card payment partners and that GCash WILL NOT RECEIVE AND PROFIT from any part of the fees involved.

It is important to note that if not for the recent increase in charges implemented by GCash card payment partners, GCash will not be passing on any convenience fee for our cash-in via Visa/MasterCard bank card service.

However, GCash made clear that other cash-in methods would remain free such as cashing in via linked BPI or UnionBank accounts, or through bank applications or websites powered by InstaPay.

On top of being free, other benefits you can get when linking your bank account directly is being able to cash-in anytime, anywhere.

Card-linking VS Bank account-linking

If you’re a little bit confuse between card-linking and Bank account-linking and why is there a need to link you bank account still when some debit cards can also function as credit card too? Card linking is when your bank’s card uses Visa or Mastercard’s network. Usually, you can also find Visa and Mastercard logos on these cards while Bank account linking is directly linking your bank account to GCash. These are first-party networks that are directly between the partner bank and GCash

Despite this, GCash is the most-widely used e-wallet there is and still the most competitive  in the market considering the charges: Here’s why:

• The fee is still lower than other mobile wallets, where a flat rate of P30 is charged for each cash-in transaction (especially for cash-in transactions below P1,000).
• 70,000 partner merchants nationwide accepting GCash
• Free cash-ins to the customer with linked bank accounts or via InstaPay network
• Multiple value-added services such as GCredit, GSave, and GInvest
• Convenient payment of bills through GCash Pay Bills and bank money transfers through GCash Bank Transfers

For more information just follow this link (https://help.gcash.com/hc/en-us/sections/900000085683-Cash-In-via-Bank-EMI-Apps-InstaPay-)