February 16, 2010 – MANILA, PHILIPPINES AND SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Globe Telecom, a leading mobile operator in the Philippines through its wholly owned mobile commerce subsidiary G-Xchange Inc (GXI), is partnering with BOKU, Inc., a global leader in mobile payments, to expand acceptance of the Globe GCASH service internationally, the companies announced today. The deal opens the BOKU mobile payment platform and growing international merchant community to Globe’s GCASH subscribers.

By partnering with BOKU, GCASH extends its reach outside the Philippines to a global community of more than 1,000 BOKU merchant partners and a mobile payments community that covers over 190 carriers worldwide, allowing its users to purchase virtual goods from any merchant in the BOKU global merchant network.

“The Philippines is one of the richest markets in the world for mobile payments.” said Rizza Maniego-Eala, President of G- Exchange, Inc. “Since its inception in 2004, GCASH has been the most widely used mobile payment method for online purchases in the Philippines.  BOKU’s focus on mobile payments, specialized team, large merchant base, and tier-one investors makes them the perfect partner in providing GCASH subscribers with a rich new experience in mobile commerce, that opens up the opportunity to explore and purchase virtual goods from the vast international market.”

“This partnership is a perfect meeting of two companies’ visions for the way to pay in the future” said Mark Britto, CEO of BOKU. “This is a great model for mobile payments, enabling carriers to reach global merchants through BOKU’s network, expanding capabilities for online and physical purchases, while driving increased carrier revenues and reducing subscriber churn.”

BOKU launched in June 2009 and has seen tremendous growth in the last year.  Over this brief period the company has developed direct mobile payments service relationships with over 1,000 game and application developers, including almost all of the top applications for virtual goods and currencies purchased on Facebook.  BOKU’s mobile payment service, Paymo, is enabled across 190 carriers worldwide in over 60 countries, and reaches a potential 1.8 billion customers.

Useful Links:
GCASH Website:  http://www.globe.com.ph/gcash
BOKU Website:  http://www.BOKU.com
Paymo Website:  http://www.paymo.com
Watch a demo of BOKU in action:  http://bit.ly/2CEUoE
BOKU blog:  http://blog.BOKU.com/
Media Kit:  http://www.BOKU.com/press/media/