Ridesharing, service, and delivery provider Grab Philippines (Grab) said the P25.45-million penalty required by the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) to be returned to its eligible customers has been “fully disbursed,” but only a small portion have so far been claimed.
In a statement on Tuesday, Grab said the administrative fee imposed by the PCC to Grab was fully disbursed in a “timely manner, using the PCC-approved mechanism.”
“We can confirm that there were no tech issues encountered with regards to the disbursement of the administrative fees. All eligible passengers have received their portion of the disbursed admin fee in their Grab Rewards Catalog,” it said.
In response to the PCC’s statement that only 24.1 percent of the refund has been claimed, Grab said many of the eligible customers have not redeemed their portion of the refund.
“With the majority of eligible passengers entitled for a PHP1 admin fee from the PCC, the amount that is not substantial enough for them to create a GrabPay wallet account and undergo the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas)-mandated KYC (Know Your Customer),” the firm said.
Users who are eligible for the refund are required by BSP regulations to complete the KYC process prior to redemption.
To address the low redemption rate, it suggested measures to the PCC and “have not received any response from them.”
“Grab Philippines has yet to receive the final decision of the PCC on the recommendations for those eligible passengers lacking the mandatory KYC, but we would like to reassure our kababayans that we will continue to work with the competition commission to ensure that the remaining administrative fee amount is fully-redeemed,” the company said.
On Monday, the PCC ordered Grab to “immediately release” the remaining PHP19.3 million refund to eligible customers and noted Grab’s “low disbursement of the refunds from previous fines.”
It gave Grab until April 22 to refund the remaining amount via the GrabPay wallet “without requiring any act from the users to claim the amount.”