NOW that it is offering a full range of banking services via the web, Bank of the Philippine Islands is going global and eyeing the potentially huge market of Filipinos abroad.

"This was a pleasant surprise for us. Suddenly, our market is global. Our goal is to make it very convenient for people to transfer funds to and from abroad," said BPI Computer Systems Corp. Vice President Erwin Locsin at the soft launch of BPI Express Online at www.bpiexpressonline.com.

BPI will be able to fully address this niche once its bills presentment and bills payment service are activated next year. At present, over 40 services are already available through BPI Express Online, including 24x7 access to deposit accounts, funds transfer and loan applications.

"Everything you can do in a bank, you can now do via the web," Locsin said.

Though acknowledging that other Philippine banks were first to offer their services via the web, Locsin stressed that BPI is the first to offer "full Internet banking."

"In the case of BPI Express Online, yes, we're not the first to do Internet banking, but we offer a more comprehensive range of services. Moreover, this is integrated with BPI Call Center," he said. "What I learned from banks in the United States is that you can't implement an Internet strategy without a good customer support system. This was the experience of US banks which rushed into Internet banking."

Enrollment in BPI Express Online is now ongoing and customers can avail of the convenience of registering online at the site. According to Mary Anne Tolentino, assistant vice president of BPI's Internet Banking Department, the bank already has received a number of inquiries from customers abroad, particularly overseas workers who remit their earnings to relatives in the Philippines.

"One of the comments from workers in Saudi Arabia is that they really need the bills presentment system that we will soon be pilot testing. We have remittance centers around the world, and remittance is really a huge market. We, however, don't have the actual figures yet," Tolentino said.

According to Locsin, the bills presentment service called Express Bills should be pilot tested this January.

"Even with simple things like the payment of household bills, this site would be a big help to Filipinos abroad. If the breadwinner is working abroad, he or she can already check bills, whereas before it was hard to keep updated," he said.

BPI also plans to extend the site's services to online bill payment, shopping and stock trading. Locsin added that BPI Express Online will also complement the Ayala Group's existing Ayala eCenter business-to consumer (B2C) e-commerce site at www.ayalaecenter.com.

To ensure secure electronic transactions, the site makes use of Secure Socket Layer and firewall technology. According to Locsin, BPI Express Online supports from 40- to 128-bit encryption. BPI is using digital certificates issued by leading certification authority VeriSign Inc.

Tolentino also stressed that their goal would be to make BPI Express Online a lively online community.

"The Internet became very successful because of the community spirit. Definitely we plan to make this an online community where our customers can access and share information. These features should be out sometime next year," she said.

While BPI Express Online is the bank's B2C Internet banking solution, BPI already launched in the middle of this year its business-to-business solution dubbed BPI Link for corporate clients. Locsin indicated that BPI would also deploy smart card technology for its B2B solution.

"The plan is for us to issue our digital certificates which can be stored on a smart card for our corporate clients," he said.