Prevent the spread of COVID-19 by sending and paying bills online

The option to send money or pay bills online has been around for a while now. It’s convenient and easy to do. But given the current situation, we can now see that these online methods can also help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The virus mainly spread during close contact so, a community quarantine and social-distancing measures were put in place. As of April 3, 2020, there are more than 1 million confirmed cases worldwide. More than 3,000 of those cases are in the Philippines.

Now is the time to take advantage of online payment or fund transfer methods since we can only leave our homes to buy necessities. And one of the most popular platforms to do this is GCash. If you haven’t tried GCash yet, let us show you its features.

GCash Send Money

As the name of the feature suggests, it allows you to send funds from your GCash account. There are two available options:

• Express Send – This option allows you to quickly send money from one GCash user to another GCash user for free. All you need to do is enter the mobile number of the registered GCash user and the amount and hit send.

To access the Express Send feature, just open your GCash app then tap on Send Money.

• Send to Bank – This allows you to send money from your GCash account to a bank account (over 40 partner banks) for free. There’s no need to leave the safety of your home as you can do it straight from the GCash app on your smartphone. GCash is also a member of BSP’s “InstaPay” network which means you can transfer Peso funds almost instantly between accounts of participating BSP-supervised banks and non-bank e-money issuers in the Philippines.

To access the Send to Bank features, just open your GCash app, tap on Send Money, then tap on Send to Bank. Alternatively, you can open your GCash app then tap on Bank Transfer.

GCash Pay Bills

Let’s take a look at the GCash Pay Bills feature. As the name suggests, you can pay your bills like Meralco, Manila Water, Maynilad, credit cards, and phone bills using the funds on your GCash account. Like the Send Money feature, you don’t need to leave your home and wait in line, which lessens your exposure to the virus.

All you need to do is open the GCash app then tap on Pay Bills. From there you can select the biller and make your payment. A receipt will be provided after every transaction.

I’ve been using GCash for more than a year now and it has been my go-to platform for sending funds and paying bills due to the ease of use and doesn’t charge any fees.

It became more useful when the quarantine was implemented as I was still able to pay our bills as well as easily send funds to family members or online sellers of essential products. You can even use it to donate to organizations that are fighting COVID-19.

So, if you don’t have a GCash account yet, you can go ahead and download it from your smartphone. It’s free and is available in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.