PBCOM MOBILE 04 01

Philippine Bank of Communications – PBCOMobile

Philippine Bank of Communications – PBCOMobile 400 400 Exist Software Labs

Philippine Bank of Communications – PBCOMobile

CLIENTS

PBCOM (Philippine Bank of Communications) is a commercial bank that offers a broad suite of financial services for Deposits, Corporate, Commercial and Personal Loans, Cash Management Solutions, and Investments. Founded in 1939, PBCOM has its roots in Binondo, Manila, and now has almost one hundred branches located across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

PBCOM has recently taken a challenger bank approach to technology and software to digitize and streamline retail banking. Challenger banks use digital distribution channels, typically mobile, to offer competitive retail banking services that target underserved and unserved demographics. The approach uses an improved user experience, appealing to those who want to be able to bank from their phones instead of visiting a bank branch.

Project Brief

PBCom collaborated with Exist to build “PBCOMobile”, a mobile banking application for iOS and Android phones that allows its new customers to open a PBCom account online and perform most banking transactions without the need to ever visit a bank branch.

Challenges

In order to offer a scalable and flexible infrastructure for the challenger bank approach, PBCOM needed to quickly develop new mobile banking platform that could utilize PBCOM’s new core banking system running on the cloud. This new core banking system had a full suite of APIs that were previously unavailable.

Solution

Exist developed the mobile banking application that PBCOM envisioned with some of the most notable open-source technologies of our time.

  • PBCOMobile was developed in cloud wherein the application code is delivered in small, manageable pieces independent of each other. It brings in easier maintenance, improved productivity, greater fault tolerance, and better business alignment
  • Exist used container technologies which make it easier to create, deploy, and run applications.
  • Exist implemented Mesosphere DC/OS to effectively manage microservices. Each service is easily deployable and configurable. It allows high-availability for the applications as well as a health check and status checking
  • PBCOMobile currently uses Apache to temporarily store important data such as audit logs and notifications until an available consumer is ready to process them. This provides assurance that no data will be lost.
  • Mulesoft is used to map and transform data based on the desired request and/or response format.
  • Exist also used the most advanced open-source database system, PostgreSQL

Results

For the Business:

The engagement allowed PBCOM leapfrog most of the local banks by offering mobile account opening, self-service debit card management and mobile check deposits. It improved business traction. PBCOM is acquring new clients and customers everyday due to the new system. They were also expand the relationship of existing customers with this innovation. This was also rolled out in time to service Filipinos during the community quarantine brought about the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the Customers:

The application offered a faster, easier, and more convenient way to open accounts, deposit checks, transfer money, and pay bills. It is an additional platform for customers to do banking transactions remotely.

Because of its timely delivery and competitive pricing, Exist remains a key technology partner for PBCOM. As of now, they are having continuous discussions to enhance the application. There is also an existing maintenance agreement for PBCOMobile to ensure its efficient operation and performance.

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SM PRIME 09 01

SM Prime Holdings, Inc.

SM Prime Holdings, Inc. 400 400 Exist Software Labs


SM Prime Holdings, Inc.

Exist developed an Augmented Reality (AR) Viewer App for SM Cinema Games such as the Avengers: Infinity War AR App and Deadpool 2 AR App. 

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PHILIPPINE STAR 29 01

The Philippine Star (Philstar)

The Philippine Star (Philstar) 400 400 Exist Software Labs

The Philippine Star (Philstar)

CLIENTS

Exist helped Philstar deliver up-to-the-minute content across the latest Android mobile and tablet devices.

Project Brief

www.philstar.com is a Philippine news and entertainment portal for the Filipino global community. It is the online presence of the STAR Group of Publications, a leading publisher of newspapers and magazines in the Philippines.

Combining the immediacy of rich media reporting with the relevance of local reporting, Philstar is playing a vital role in Philippine’s news coverage of business and political events.

In the rapidly-changing world of modern journalism, demand for an innovative web platform that can push the boundaries of news reporting on the Internet is growing.

On its 10th year, Philstar wanted to re-launch their website to offer their readers a new and improved site with easier navigation, better-organized news content, as well as more interactive tools and features.

This case study examines Philstar’s migration to Drupal and highlights how Exist helped Philstar managed the site through Exist’s managed service solution.

Challenges

The main challenge was to build a simple, intuitive and easy to use Android app for PhilStar and Pilipino Star Ngayon (the Filipino version of Philstar).

Among the client’s goals are:

  1. Provide their readers with an additional platform to access their content anytime and anywhere.
  2. Create a unique mobile experience to allow its readers get the latest unbiased breaking news, headlines, sports, showbiz and opinion.
  3. Tap and expand their reach into the rapidly growing Android market.

Solution

Delivered on budget and within three months, Exist helped Philstar deliver up-to-the-minute content across the latest Android mobile and tablet devices.

The Exist team, composed of one Android developer, one UI Designer and one Project Manager worked closely with Philstar to ensure that they design an easy to use app for their target audience (which is primarily the Filipino readers).“Since access to content is the primary, end-user objective, we adhere to commonly applied, Design Patterns. We used familiar UI elements but we also reinvent some elements to make the app more intuitive and suitable for our target demographics. We really worked hard to make the app easy to use,” shared Mac Madrid, Android developer at Exist.

Android does not support full-text justification by default, so the team looked for ways to justify the text in the newsfeed and took extra steps to achieve this aesthetic vanity.

Moreover, the team also did a lot of memory management. Since one pull request will return hundreds of article, they had to efficiently manage all the data that they have and present it in such ways that it doesn’t overwhelm the overly-paranoid memory management of Android.

Features of the applications include:

  • Newsfeed – Browse the latest breaking stories in seconds
  • Offline reading – mark your favorite article to read them any time
  • Text resize functionalities for enhanced text readability – users can set the size of the text through an in-app setting; Share stories via Twitter, Facebook, Email, Google+, Pinterest, etc
  • Customize your news experience – Filter your newsfeed to Headlines, Nation, Metro, Opinion, Lifestyle, Sports, Business, and Entertainment
  • Swipe up to view related articles and swipe down to close a current article
  • Tablet-optimized – optimized for use on different Android tablet devices
  • Search feature – enables users to search within the app
  • Interactive advertising – allows Philstar to sell rich media display advertising

After developing the Philstar app, the team ported the app and localized it to create the Pilipino Star Ngayon app.

Results

A market-leading Android mobile news app.

Philstar trusted Exist to deliver their Philstar and Pilipino Star Ngayon applications on time and on budget, between August 2012 and October 2012. Philstar was able to take advantage of mobile to deliver real-time news and bring collaboration and interaction from within their community.

Exist helped Philstar achieved its goals that led to:

  1. Grow their mobile audience; having a 500k monthly app pageviews
  2. A genuine strategic advantage through a successful mobile engagement strategy
  3. A brand new revenue stream through in-app display advertising
  4. A unique mobile experience across Android mobile and tablet devices

Since their launch in October 2012, the Philstar app has approximately 100,000 downloads while Pilipino Star Ngayon has approximately 10,000 downloads.

“The new Philstar app is truly responsive to the needs of our Android users,” said Jules Salonga, Philstar Vice President of Operations. “It was designed for the user who wants real-time news and information and it offers unique mobile experience across all Android smartphones and tablets.”

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GOMOTO 30 01

GoMoto, Philippines

GoMoto, Philippines 400 400 Exist Software Labs

GoMoto, Philippines

CLIENTS

GoMoto, a tech startup based in the Philippines, has partnered with Exist to launch its motorcycle e-hailing services app in Metro Manila.

The new motorcycle e-hailing services app initially offers users on-demand delivery services around the Metro. GoMoto enables users to request an on-demand courier service in select parts of the city where they can easily track where their package is in real time using the GoMoto app on their smartphones.

App Features

  • On-demand delivery – Same day pick-up and delivery anywhere within Metro Manila in 90-minutes or less
  • Real-time tracking – track where your packages are with our built-in map
  • Reliable – all partner drivers underwent road safety training, traffic exam, customer service seminar
  • Insurance – all packages are inclusive of P2,000 free insurance

Available in iTunes and Google Play

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Philippines’ Leading Mobile Network

Philippines’ Leading Mobile Network 400 400 Exist Software Labs

Philippines’ Leading Mobile Network

CLIENTS

Exist developed a mobile and web-based health exchange and information management system that features patient registration, doctor referrals, appointment scheduling, recording of consultations, and patient notification/reminders. The SHINE system enables public and private health care providers and facilities to efficiently operate and communicate individual or aggregated referral and case records to the right people in a timely, accurate, and interactive manner. SHINE also enables inter-facility health e-referrals.

Largest Mobile Operator in the Philippines 10

Largest Mobile Operator in the Philippines

Largest Mobile Operator in the Philippines 400 400 Exist Software Labs

Largest Mobile Operator in the Philippines

CLIENTS

Exist developed a micropayment service app for the largest mobile operator in the Philippines.

App Features

  • Send and receive money to and from another mobile phone anytime & anywhere
  • Pay bills – loan, utilities, credit cards, etc.
  • Make purchases – Buy load and buy merchandise at partner establishments
  • Shop online – AMEX Virtual Pay integration, to allow users without AMEX cards to buy via Amazon, for example
  • Donate to various affiliated institutions

Available in iTunes and Google Play