GCash Card Payment Partners : The Main Reason for the 2.58% Card Cash-in Fee

Starting Monday, July 6, 2020, GCash will charge a 2.58% convenience fee every time you cash in using linked Visa/Mastercard bank cards.  This pass-on fee is actually a direct charge to GCash's card payment partners.  The company clarified that they will not receive a single peso from the pass-on fees as it will all go to their card payment partners.

2.58% Pass-On Fees by GCash's Card Payment Partners

Starting next Monday, a 2.58% convenience fee will be charged with your card cash-in amount.  For example, you cashed in Php 1000 cash, you will be charged 1025.80 to your card.  The fees are automatically computed by the Gcash app and it will be stated in the app for each cash-in.  The pass-on fees will also be reflected in your transaction history.

Cashing in via Visa/Mastercard has been a free service that allowed users to fund their GCash wallets.  Recently, card payment partners increased their service charges.  This prompted GCash to implement the 2.58% pass-on fees which represent the direct charges from the payment partners.

As a pioneer of the country's digital payment industry, GCash implemented this new convenience fee only because the credit card partners have recently increased their charges.  The good news is that GCash still provides several ways to cash-in that is totally FREE.

3 G-Cash In Methods That are absolutely FREE

If you do not like to incur additional charges to fund your GCash wallet, here are 3 ways that are free.

Cash-in For Free via BPI

Linking your GCash Account to your BPI Online Banking Account allows you to transfer money to your GCash wallet in real-time!  You can link up your account in 2 easy steps.  First, you just need to tap My Linked Accounts on the upper left of the screen on your GCash dashboard.  Then you select BPI Account then enter your username and password to link your GCash wallet to the account.  Easy, right?

Cashing in will only take 3 simple steps.  Step 1. You select Cash-in on the GCash dashboard and select BPI on the online banking tab.  Step 2. You enter the amount you want to add to your wallet then, tap on to which account you want to cash-in from and then, confirm the amount.  Step 3.  This step is for added security.  BPI will send you an authentication code via SMS to your BPI-registered number which will you need to input to complete the transaction.  You can actually cash-in up to 50,000 pesos a day.  New users will start with a daily cap of 15,000 pesos which will increase over time and constant usage.

Cashing-in via BPI is easy, fast, and secure.

Cash-in via UnionBank for Free

Another banking partner of GCash is UnionBank and you can also link up a UnionBank Account to your GCash Wallet.  To do this you first click My Linked Accounts on your GCash dashboard and select UnionBank. Then, you may enter your UnionBank credentials or Tap Guest check out to answer security questions. After completing the second step, your UnionBank-registered mobile number will receive the One-Time-Password that you need to enter and submit. You will then be asked to choose which bank you want to connect with the app.  You are only allowed to link one account at a time. Once you picked the account, you will then see the confirmation page that tells you that your enrollment is being processed.  Once completed, you will receive an SMS to confirm the linking of your UnionBank account to your GCash.

To cash-in, all you have to do is to pick UnionBank on the online banking tab then enter the amount you wish to cash-in.  Click next and confirm the transaction at the confirmation screen. And voila, you just added GCash to your GCash wallet for FREE.  You will also receive a confirmation SMS for the cash-in transaction.

Cash-In via InstaPay Banks

InstaPay is an electronic fund transfer service that allows customers to have an almost real-time peso transfer between accounts in participating BSP-supervised banks and non-bank e-money issuers in the Philippines.  Using your bank online baking app, you can easily transfer money to GCash via G-Exchange.  You can click this link for more details: https://help.gcash.com/hc/en-us/sections/900000085683-Cash-In-via-Bank-EMI-Apps-InstaPay-

Pass-on Fees by Gcash's card payment partners apply only to Visa/Mastercard-linked accounts

There is a big difference between card-linking and bank account-linking.  Card linking is when you link your bank's card that uses the Visa or Mastercard network.  Usually, you see a Visa or Mastercard logo on these cards.  Bank account-linking meanwhile,  directly links your bank account to your GCash.  The 2.58% pass-on fees only applies to card-linked cash-in transactions. 

More Reasons to Use GCash

Contactless payments have been very useful during this pandemic and GCash is at the forefront of this movement.  GCash is for sure the most competitive mobile wallet in the country right now.  It is accepted in over 70,000 merchant partners nationwide and it is even widely adopted by the friendly online sellers that are selling homemade goodies during the quarantine period.  You can also conveniently pay your bills via the app.

GCash offers free cash-in with linked banked accounts or via the InstaPay network.  Hassle-free bank transfers are also allowed via GCash Bank transfers.  The new 2.58% pass-on fees on card cash-ins are still lower than other mobile wallets that charge a flat fee of 30 pesos per transaction (especially for cash-ins below 1000 pesos).

GCash also has various value-added services like GCredit, GSave, and GInvest.  You can also get discounts when you buy prepaid load for your mobile phones via the app. 

If you have not downloaded or used GCash, now is a perfect time.