The Philippines Long Distance Telephone company (PLDT) recently launched three new mobile M2M applications for business under its SMART Enterprise arm: M2M Credit, M2M Sales and M2M Pay.
“As the SMART Enterprise mission is to be the preferred M2M service provider for enterprise customers, we believe that we have ably achieved this not just by being the first to market with these revolutionary solutions, but by also adding our network reliability and reach as well as our swelling ranks of ICT experts into the mix,” PLDT executive vice president and head of international and carrier business Eric Alberto said in a statement.
M2M Credit lets banks and other institutions send out agents out in the field to assess whether a client is creditworthy from a mobile device, without having to have a person come into an office.
“The SMART M2M Credit gives credit institutions the benefits of digitizing manual processes allowing for faster approvals for loan applications,” said SMART Enterprise product marketing Head Chet Alviz. “With a mobile app, it lessens the time that field assets need to submit reports to their headquarters as they are now able to send their reports right after confirming needed information.”
The company has also introduced M2M Sales, backed by Salesforce.com, which includes sales call tracking, performance monitoring and inventory tracking.
M2M Pay is similar to services like Square, letting merchants accept credit card payments on their smartphones, whether on iPhone or Android devices, with a card reader.
These apps show how the developing world has taken to mobile technology after they were largely bypassed by wireline telephony.
The mobile applications offer a cheaper alternative to conventional applications. In the case of M2M Pay, they offer substantial savings over POS systems.
“This solution is an affordable alternative for businesses, particularly independent merchants, to accept card payments from their customers, compared to purchasing expensive POS machines,” Alvi said. “The device also has the flexibility to function if connectivity becomes momentarily unavailable assuring businesses that payments go through.”
Edited by
Rachel Ramsey
