To aid the victims of Typhoon Odette in their recovery, Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) recently deployed its “Bank on Wheels” (BOW) mobile banking facility in Cebu, to provide customers with easy access to much needed basic financial services.

BOW is UnionBank’s 5G-capable banking kiosk in a van, designed to bring the bank’s technology and innovation directly to its customers. It is a mobile version of its first-in-industry fully digital banking branch, The ARK, allowing customers to experience the features of the said branch potentially anywhere in the country.

“In the wake of Typhoon Odette’s devastation, many banking customers in Cebu and other affected areas were left with little to no access to basic banking services,” said Henry Aguda, SEVP, CTOO, and CTO, UnionBank. “Committed to addressing this urgent concern, we deployed BOW while we worked on restoring the bank’s ATM network in these areas.”

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UnionBank cardholders in Cebu used the ATMs inside the kiosk to do balance inquiries, withdrawals, funds transfers, and bills payment transactions. Non-UnionBank cardholders were able to make balance inquiries and withdraw cash.

With the cash recycler machine (CRM) also inside the kiosk, the UnionBank customers were also able to do card-less withdrawal as well as cash deposits for both carded and card-less transactions. Non-UnionBank cardholders, on the other hand, were able to do balance inquiries and cash withdrawals.

The BOW moved to various typhoon-affected areas to make its features accessible to as many banking customers as possible.

In the aftermath of the typhoon, UnionBank’s ATM availability in disaster-stricken areas was disconnected to only 21%. The availability of its ATMs was up to 64% after a day.