GCash turned every sari-sari store into an ATM — and won Philippine cash

GCash began in October 2004 as G-Cash, an SMS e-wallet from Globe Telecom's G-Xchange, with cash-in/out through sari-sari stores and Globe outlets (P1.00 per transaction), winning a GSMA award in 2005. Yet by February 2017 it still had only ~3 million registered customers and ~P10 billion of weekly transactions — the Philippines' largest mobile wallet, but stalled.

The pivot came in 2017: Ant Financial — its first investment in the Philippines — and Ayala subscribed to new Mynt shares (signed 17 February 2017). GCash was rebuilt as a super app: Alipay-style payments first, then lending (GCredit, GLoan), savings (GSave), insurance (GInsure) and investment (GInvest), all risk-scored from transaction data (GScore). Cash-in/out exploded through retail corners — 339,000 points by 2022, 1.3 million by 2026 — and COVID government relief payouts delivered a mass first-use during 2020.

The numbers: users from 46M (Jul 2021) to 66M (1H2022) to 94M registered (Oct 2024; MAU 40.4M, ~55% of adults, by 2026); GTV from P1T+ (2020) to P3.8T (2021) to P17.03T (2025); net profit P6.38B (2023), P11.13B (2024), P17.25B (2025). A valuation marker of $5B came in August 2024 (Ayala adding 8%, with MUFG), and in October 2026 GCash listed on the PSE raising ₱92.3 billion — the largest IPO in Philippine history.

Solve cash, not features.

Infrastructure beats UI: in a cash economy the wallet's moat is the density of cash-in/out points, not the app — turning every shopkeeper into a distributor makes the network build itself.

Data becomes credit: payment history on the unbanked is the risk file banks lack, so the lending and wealth layers monetize the same user at several times the payment margin.

In cash-first markets, build the conversion rail before the features: use corner stores as ATMs, keep the base free, and let payment data graduate users to credit and wealth.

GCash closed 2025 with ₱17.03T of GTV, ₱17.25B net profit, 1.3M cash points and 40.4M monthly actives; in October 2026 it listed on the PSE raising ₱92.3B — the Philippines' largest-ever IPO. Globe holds 33.84% and Ant International 21.44%, and cumulative loan originations reached ₱362B.