Leading microfinance services provider Cebuana Lhuillier continues its foray into innovation and fintech as it announces its recent integration into the Stellar blockchain network. This partnership reinforces its venture into block-chain based payment services.
The partnership with the Stellar network allows customers to receive cross-border remittance payments almost instantly and more conveniently at more than 3,000 Cebuana Lhuillier branches across the Philippines.
This new setup is a blockchain-powered alternative to traditional remittance flows, which typically come with long waits for users, and heavy capital requirements that limit scale and liquidity for Money Transfer Operators (MTOs). The alternative significantly alleviates the challenges faced by MTOs by allowing them to settle payments immediately instead of after days via traditional fiat rails.
This is encouraging news for the millions of Filipinos working overseas who rely on remittance companies like Cebuana Lhuillier to send support to their families in the Philippines. Currently, the Philippines remains one of the top five recipient countries for money remittances, with millions of Overseas Filipino Workers spread out across the globe, forming a key part of a $31 billion-dollar industry.
“Cebuana Lhuillier has always stood by its mission of providing financial inclusion to Filipinos, and that includes the millions of Overseas Filipino Workers, considered modern-day heroes, who toil away overseas in order to provide a better future for their families. Our integration with the Stellar network is part of Cebuana Lhuillier’s constant innovation of its tried-and-tested financial services, all for the purpose of making it easier, more convenient, and more cost-effective for recipients in the Philippines to instantly receive their remittances from abroad,” shared Jean Henri Lhuillier, Cebuana Lhuillier president and CEO.
The Stellar network is a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable network for financial products and services. This integration with Stellar is part of Cebuana Lhuillier’s move towards further exploration of fintech in order to increase the efficiency and convenience of its services.
“As Cebuana Lhuillier joins the Stellar ecosystem, a powerful route for affordable and instant
remittances emerge in the Philippines,” said Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation. “Together, we are improving the global financial system by bringing more equitable access to critical markets. Stellar is the network built for payments around the world and this is a step in fulfilling our mission.”
“This integration with Stellar is just one of the many initiatives of Cebuana Lhuillier. We are setting our sights on ensuring a seamless transfer between the offline and online channels for the business and putting systems in place that focus on convenience, accessibility, and efficiency. Our goal is to ensure that every Ka-Cebuana will be able to seamlessly send and receive money via Cebuana Lhuillier, anytime, anywhere, everywhere—whether via physical transactions or through their mobile phones,” added Erl Sumanga, General Manager and Head for Cebuana Lhuillier’s Money Transfers Business.
