Thursday, February 23, 2012

Sterling Bank of Asia Now Available

Sterling Bank of Asia is another new player in town.  It is a savings bank affiliated with the Bancnet consortium.

Sterling Bank of Asia is owned by the Tiu group whose other business interests include the Discovery chain of hotels and overseas remittance company, iRemit.  The group previously owned International Exchange Bank (iBank) which it sold to the Aboitiz Group-controlled Unionbank.

Sterling Bank of Asia account holders may purchase from Dragonpay merchants using their Internet Banking account.  Account holders and non-account holders can also make over-the-counter payments at any Sterling Bank branch.  The bank does not charge a handling fee for both over-the-counter and online bank payments.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

RobinsonsBank Supported

RobinsonsBank is relatively new player in town.  It started out as Robinsons Savings Bank with the Megalink consortium, but have converted into a full-service commercial bank in recent years and switched to Bancnet.

RobinsonsBank is owned by the Gokongwei group whose other major interests include real estate (Robinsons Land), retail (Robinsons Department Store, Robinsons Supermarket, Toys 'R Us), manufacturing (Universal Robina Corporation), and many others.  Until recently, it was a major player in the telecommunications industry through Digitel and Sun Cellular.  The group recently sold their telecommunications business to the PLDT group.

RobinsonsBank account holders may purchase from Dragonpay merchants using their Internet Banking account.  Account holders and non-account holders can also make over-the-counter payments at any RobinsonsBank branch.  Note that provicinal over-the-counter payments are charged with a handling fee as of this writing, but payments made through Internet Banking are not.