GCash Cash-In via Mastercard and Visa will be charged 2.58% of the total amount being cashed-in in every transactions starting July 6. These charges are basically "pass-on" fees from GCash's card payment partners to which the they will tag as convenience fee. This means that GCash has nothing to do with the charges.
The fee will directly go to Gcash card payment partners and GCash won't receive anything from this fee. This cash-in method was initially introduced to be free of charge. With the rising popularity of digital wallets, and with GCash being the most widely accepted product, this convenience fee might draw flak among its users.
GCash Free Cash In Alternatives
However, Gcash cash-in options are not just limited to VISA/Mastercard Bank Card, you can still cash-in for free using your BPI or Unionbank accounts. Plus, you can do it through a bank app or website powered by Instapay. From the varied types of linking via your GCash app, these two are the most common: first you can link a card powered by Mastercard or VISA; or you can also opt to link your bank accounts like BPI or Unionbank. The latter is still free.Linking your bank account with GCash offers great convenience whenever you need to cash-in. Aside from the fact that it's free, you can do cash-in transactions anytime and anywhere. You can also cash-in to GCash via InstaPay network if it's supported by your bank. You can check the following guide and see if your bank's on the list.
GCash is still the most popular digital wallet app in the Philippines with over 70,000 partner merchants nationwide. It's fee are still lower than most competition with Php 30 flat rate charge for cash-in transaction. Php 30 is a big fee especially if you're just cashing in small amounts.
On top of that, GCash also offers several value added services like GCredit, GSave and GInvest. And most of all, GCash is still the best platform for online transactions like bills payment; it also has a huge list of partner banks for bank money transfers.