If you’ve been to a Robinson’s in the past few weeks you may have noticed an ATM-like kiosk with the “GoTyme” branding. For the unfamiliar, GoTyme is one of the newer digital banks in the Philippines forged as a partnership between the Gokongwei Group (hence Robinson’s) and Tyme.
GoTyme Bank is a joint venture of Tyme, a multi-country digital banking group, with members of the Gokongwei Group, namely Robinsons Bank, Robinsons Land Corporation, and Robinsons Retail Holdings, Inc. The partnership brings together the Gokongwei Group’s extensive ecosystem across different industries, and TymeBank’s secure banking platform that now successfully serves over 5 million customers in South Africa.
I finally succumbed to the curiosity to see what this was all about — the kiosks really looked high tech and I was genuinely curious what it was. I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was an onboarding tool that prints out your debit card on the spot!
If you’ve signed up for Maya or GCash or any other digital-only bank, the onboarding process to get your debit card is quite similar. I already use both banking services mentioned above, but since I frequent stores owned by the Gokongwei group, the GoRewards points boost earnings using GoTyme really make sense. There was a bank rep present with the kiosk who helped me create anaccount. This was a boon because if you’ve ever done this on your own before, scanning your ID and getting the facial recognition selfie by yourself can be a minor hassle.
The rep helped me with the entire process, except for the PIN (of course duh). She was also very helpful in giving clear instructions such as the 20% cashback on the first swipe with P1,000 max (so if you’re going to use the card for the first time, buy something above P1,000 so you get the maximum P200.00 back).
After creating my account on the phone, I was able to enter my number on the kiosk and it printed my card on the spot! In less than 10 minutes I was able to create a new bank account with a debit card. Check out the video:
As a marketer, there’s a big lesson to be learned here in POS onboarding. Maybe we can attribute the willingness of digital bank acceptance to the pandemic, but there’s really something gratifying with having a new and instantly-usable debit card printed on the spot. Because these kiosks are located inside a Robinson’s you can immediately avail of the 3x GoRewards. In an age of instants, we finally got to the point of having instant bank accounts and debit cards. Following LIMBS, it checks the boxes — the landscape of digital banks goes “back” to the physical by allowing an otherwise fickle market (Boomer Gen) to sign up for the cards. The rep was onboarding other boomers who were curious about the 20% cashback and 3x rewards. The experience makes for a good story as well because this does not disrupt their day-to-day schedule. It happens beside the cashier while checking out. “Free Printing” — who can resist free!?
By the way, I have no affiliation with GoTyme and I am not being paid for this post. I just found the onboarding process to be quite innovative.
