Biz Shorts
ASAP Cebu bags confab award
A CEBU-based advertising agency won recognition at the “Oscars” of conference organizers, the Asian Conference Awards 2012, in Singapore last March 27.
ASAP Cebu bagged the Best Telecommunications Conference Award besting three other nominated conferences in Singapore and China.
ASAP Cebu was recognized for organizing the Asian Carriers’ Conference, an annual international conference hosted by PLDT -Smart and attended by over 1,000 delegates from 45 countries.
“It was surreal, winning the award over other Asian countries. I am so proud to represent not just Cebu but the whole country as well, said Perl Jacalan, ASAP Cebu managing director in a statement.
“We went against big organizations like GP Johnson and Singtel and it was very satisfying to win over them. I do truly think the team deserves the award for the hard work we did on the event,” said Jacalan.
The Asian Conference Awards was launched to recognize excellence and reward the very best of the talented individuals and teams in the Asian Conference industry.
BPI has top banking website
THE Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) won in the 5th Digital Filipino and Search Profile Index Web Awards for top banking website.
BPI in a statement said it’s website www.bpiexpressonline.com was cited by the DigitalFilipino.com, an independent community of e-commerce professionals and enthusiasts who promote best e-commerce practices in the country, for the significant growth of its online customers, breadth of product offerings, design and functionality.
The website’s features include the ability to schedule fund transfers and bill payments.
BPI was among 30 awardees in various categories representing the most visited websites in the country feted at the 5th Digital Filipino and Search Profile Index Web Awards held at the Peninsula Manila Hotel in Makati City on Feb. 24. Among the winners were: Inquirer.net for print news, Pep.ph for entertainment, Census.gov.ph for government, and Globe.com.ph for telecommunications.
Top 10 remitting countries
THE United States, the United Kingdom and Canada remained in the list of top 10 remitting countries in the Philippines this year.
The Western Union in a statement said the list which now includes United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and Kuwait showed the trend of where Filipinos work and live overseas today.
This trend also showed the areas where most remittances from OFWs would come from.
The World Bank recently reported that the Philippines was expected to end 2011 with as much as US$23 billion in remittances, making it the fourth largest remittance-receiving country, next to India, China and Mexico.
According to the Bangko Sentral, remittances reached US$18.3 billion in the first 11 months of 2011, 7.3% up year-on-year.
With this development, Western Union, for its part, cited its role in helping transfer money to the Philipines from OFWs across 194 countries.
“Western Union has been bringing the world to the Philippines for 21 years, connecting it with a global distribution network of over 437,0003 Western Union Agent locations,” said Patricia Riingen, Senior Vice President, Pacific & Indochina, Western Union.
