BPI’s ExpressLink Mobile

The Bank of the Philippine Islands is riding in the wave of technology to provide convenience for their business clients in the region.

This developed after BPI launched its ExpressLink Mobile in Cebu.

This is the first system that’s offered by a bank allowing business executives the luxury to approve important bank transactions from their mobile phones, said Ma. Corazon S. Remo, BPI senior vice president and head for centralized operations group in a press conference last week.

“Nowadays, most of the top executives who usually sign important transactions like salaries of the employees often travel. With this system, they can easily access and approve transactions using their phones anywhere, anytime,” said Remo.

The ExpressLink Mobile App is available for download at the different App Stores for Android phones, Java phones or the Blackberry, Nokia phones and iPhones, said Nieves Basa, vice president and head of the BPI transaction banking.

“There are about 400 corporations and businesses already using the application and over 2,500 users. We hope to increase that number especially tapping the small and medium enterprises aside from the large corporations around the country,” said Basa.

In Cebu, companies like GraphicStar Imaging Corporation, RMG Management Corp. which owns and operates Julies Bakeshop, MDR Microware Sales,Inc., Philippine Spring Water Resources, Inc., Ocean Fast Ferries, Inc., Sancta Nova Enterprises, Inc., Sunpride Foods Inc., Taiheiyo Cement Philippines, Inc., and Vanille Cafe and Patisserie are already using ExpressLink Mobile.

“We hope to have more users here in Cebu and contribute to more growth in the companies and the economy,” said Remo. /Reporter Aileen Garcia-Yap

Nokia Lumia phones

Nokia Philippines new country general manager and head of sales Dharmesh Goshalia expressed confidence in the Philippine market for their new Lumia phones.

During last week’s Cebu launch of their new smart phones called Lumia series, Goshalia said that despite the presence of other smartphone brands already aggressively marketing their products here Nokia is still a preferred brand by the Filipinos.

“We are still competing strongly and we have very strong dual sim lines which is among our top sellers here in the country. We expect the same acceptance from the Filipinos for our Lumia series phones,” said Goshalia.

To cement further their brand, Goshalia said that they will be working closely with more local developers to create more applications for Nokia.

“There are over 90,000 apps now available in the Marketplace and we wish to have more. Because we want to develop apps that are relevant to Filipinos, we will be engaging more local developers and come up with more applications that every Filipino will really use,” said Goshalia.

Lumia 610, Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 are now available in the country and soon they will be introducing Lumia 900 according to Nokia corporate communications manager Nikka Abes.

According to Abes, there are 1.3 billion Nokia users worldwide and about 400 million Nokia phones were sold last year. /Reporter Aileen Garcia-Yap