Home Credit brings home the power of gaming in Iloilo at UNICON 2022

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• Gaming essentials such as smartphones, laptops, and computers offered 0% interest at Home Credit’s 0% Interest Festival this holiday season

• Home Credit continues its commitment to empowering Filipino gamers and bringing the power closer to Ilonggos

Iloilo City, Philippines. November, 2022 – Home Credit Philippines (HCPH), the country’s leading consumer finance company, partnered with ILO Esports, the only government-backed esports organization in the Philippines, for the United Iloilo Convention (UNICON 2022) – a gathering of e-games, toys, and cosplay enthusiasts in Western Visayas from October 29 to 30, 2022 at the SM City Iloilo Cyberzone.

UNICON 2022 featured a wide range of activities, including a toy convention, cosplay showcase, and e-games competition. Home Credit also set up an immersive and experiential where Ilonggos got to test top-of-the-line gadgets, played e-games with a live feed of the games on a massive LED screen, and tried out an augmented reality filter on Instagram.

Anchored on its #PlayLikeAPro campaign, Home Credit was able to showcase the best gaming smartphones, computers, and laptops, which can be purchased through its partner merchants in Iloilo City, such as Gadget Headz and Concept Computer Store.

“We at Home Credit wanted to bring home the power to Ilonggos for UNICON 2022 as part of our thrust to grow and nurture our communities across the Philippines. Esports has become a big community, and a big chunk of our customers get their smartphones and laptops through Home Credit, not only for online schooling or work but likewise for gaming,” shared Home Credit Philippines’ PR Manager, Russel Patina.

The UNICON 2022 was a weekend-long event that brought together the esports fever, with activities such as art and magic exhibits and video game duels like Tekken. A Yu-Gi-Oh! event, a cosplay parade, and a tournament took place during the second day of the event.

Display of gaming products that can be purchased through Home Credit at 0% Interest

“I would like to thank Home Credit for helping us organize this year’s UNICON. We wish and we aim that through this event, we’re able to unite the Ilonggos through games, cosplay, and collections,” shared ILO Esports’ Found and CEO, Jamar Montehermoso.

With its growing popularity, esports has become one of the most talked-about topics in the country. What was once a niche hobby has now evolved into a major sporting event, with pro teams being organized and sent out to represent the country in international competitions.

SEA Games athlete and digital content creator, Angel Danica Lozada, joined the fun in UNICON and hoped to fuel the esports victory amongst the Ilonggo youth

Angel Danica Lozada, aka Angelailaila, a League of Legends: Wild Rift player and former SEA Games representative, expressed her appreciation to Home Credit for holding the event and paving the way for gaming athletes and enthusiasts, as well as for promoting esports to the Ilonggo community.

“Through Home Credit and ILO Esports, I hope that more and more Filipino youth and Ilonggos will be encouraged to play and build an empowering esports community with us here in the Philippines. Like Home Credit, let’s bring the power and play like a pro,” shared Lozada.

Your gaming essentials at 0% Interest this holiday season!

As a holiday treat for Filipino customers, Home Credit launches The Great 0% Interest Festival with over 50,000 products offered at 0% interest rates at almost 10,000 partner stores nationwide.

Grab the latest gaming computers, laptops, and mobile phones at 0% installments and bring home the power with Home Credit Philippines #HCGreatZeroFestival this holiday season!

What are you waiting for? Shop now via the My Home Credit app and visit its partner brands and retail stores near you. Shoppers can now experience The Great 0% Interest Festival and make the most affordable purchases until January 31!

Home Credit Philippines is a financing company duly licensed and supervised by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). To learn more about the latest updates from Home Credit Philippines, visit its official website www.homecredit.ph. You may also follow its official Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts. Customers are encouraged to download the My Home Credit app on Google Play to know more about the latest promos and see what is new in the Marketplace.

How Philippines businesses can tighten up software supply chain against cyber attacks

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by Dean Vaughan, Vice President of Asia Pacific, Azul

In September 2022, Philippines Airlines lost the personal data of frequent flyers when its IT provider was hacked, adding yet another example of supply chain attacks that have bedeviled businesses globally in the past year.

The cyberattack on a third-party IT provider for the airline caused the names, birth dates, nationality, gender and points balance, among other details to be stolen.

Although it is unclear how the malicious actors managed to get into the victim’s systems, the incident once again reinforces the need to tighten up security against supply chain attacks.

For many of today’s IT systems, using third-party software in one form or another is inevitable, such is the interconnectedness of the Internet and the complexity of digital infrastructure.

An estimated 40% to 80% of the lines of code in software come from third parties such as libraries, components and software development kits. Unfortunately, they are one reason for the increased vulnerability of third-party production code that goes into digital services.

By 2025, 45% of organizations worldwide will have experienced attacks on their software supply chains, a three-fold increase from 2021, according to research firm Gartner.

Dean Vaughan, Vice President of Asia Pacific, Azul

A lack of visibility hampers defense

This is a problem facing any digital economy and the Philippines is no different as it delivers more services over digital channels in the years ahead. The way forward has to involve better detection of such vulnerabilities without impacting performance.

To begin, you can only defend against something if you know what you are up against. Since many organizations do not peer into the nuts and bolts of the many third-party programs they use, they often are working on the hope that the code is free from vulnerabilities.

Even with a vulnerability detection tool in place, many organizations fail to act on a threat, because alerts are often too general or unable to differentiate between production and non-production code. This means the work required to clean up an infected or vulnerable system is too broad to be undertaken by already beleaguered security and application teams.

Today, organizations continue to grapple with Log4Shell, a critical vulnerability found in a widely used Java-based logging component (Log4j). This loophole enables threat actors to run code on a victim’s system and take control. It has impacted countless servers and applications that used Java software because Java software is used widely in today’s modern IT infrastructure.

Yet, when the threat first emerged last year, few organizations had the ability to quickly find the exact location of the vulnerability in their IT systems because Java was used so extensively. The challenge was knowing where to look even when the dashboard lit up with a warning.

More precision needed

What is needed is greater precision, which can only be possible with improved visibility over existing solutions. Application scans in CI/CD, application agents, or application inventories (SBOMs) are valuable approaches as part of a comprehensive security strategy. However, these approaches also have drawbacks, including false positives which waste time via alert fatigue as well as a performance impact which adds burden to Java teams and their applications.

Take Azul Vulnerability Detection, a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product that continuously detects known security vulnerabilities that exist in Java applications. By eliminating false positives and with no performance impact, it is ideal for in-production use and addresses the rapidly increasing enterprise risk around software supply chain attacks.

Azul Vulnerability Detection uniquely identifies code run using sophisticated, highly granular techniques inside Azul JVMs (Java virtual machines) and maps against a curated Java-specific database of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs). This produces more accurate results, even for custom code and shaded components, so IT teams can get to a vulnerability and remediate the issue quickly and efficiently.

Gaining agility while beefing up security

To be sure, vulnerability detection tools are not new. Unfortunately, some end up providing the added security at the expense of performance. This means business agility suffers, because one’s security tool is slowing down transactions and requiring more computing resources and cost to run.

Organizations need to find a way to overcome the software supply chain problem. They need smarter tools that can beef up the security without adding overheads and dragging back performance.

When it comes to security in Java applications, what’s different with Azul Vulnerability Detection is its use of Azul Java virtual machines (JVM), which provide highly accurate runtime-level visibility into what code is actually running and whether it is vulnerable. This enables faster remediation of vulnerabilities with significantly less operational overhead.

Additionally, because the tool is agentless, it avoids the performance penalty commonly associated with other security tools that require teams to install and maintain a separate piece of software. Taken together, Azul Vulnerability Detection makes security a byproduct of simply running Java software.

Fighting a winnable battle

Security has to be baked in from the start instead of an add-on feature in a connected world. In other words, it has to be built into a piece of software or part of a technology stack that is then used to build other digital services. Unfortunately, supply chain attacks against trusted vendors and third-party code pose substantial enterprise risk.

The key to winning battles against increasingly sophisticated threats is to be armed with the right tools that deliver a solid defense while retaining the agility that organizations need today. Even as cyber threats evolve, they have to believe they can keep out the bad guys over time and continue delivering the trusted digital services and experiences to their users.

#GSafeTayo: GCash to roll out ‘double authentication’ to arrest unauthorized transactions

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Signs agreement with PNP-ACG to strengthen fight vs cybercrimes

GCash is set to roll out a new security feature that aims to prevent unauthorized transactions brought about by phishing and other types of scams.

GCash and PNP ACG strengthens collaboration through a revitalized security campaign, #SafewithGCash that aims  to mitigate scam incidents by employing a combination of user education and continuously upgrading its internal security platform to serve its 71 M users.

From L-R: GCash Head of Enterprise Risk Management Bea De Ocampo, GCash Chief Legal Officer, Atty. Maricor Alvarez-Adriano, GCash Chief Customer Officer Winsley Royce Bangit, PBGEN Joel Doria, Director PNP ACG; Police Colonel Bernard Yang

With #GSafeTayo the Philippines’ number one financial app introduced the “double authentication” feature which can ensure that only the account owner has the ability to link his GCash account to a specific device.

“This feature removes customers’ dependence on SMS OTPs which has been exploited by some fraudsters to scam users. It will provide a unique identifier that can’t be phished by scammers. It also provides an additional layer of security to the current SMS OTP,” said Winsley Bangit, Chief Customer Officer of GCash. “We never stop innovating to make sure our 71 million users have the safest and most convenient experience when they use the app.”

GCash has also introduced a new product under its GInsure platform, "Online Shopping Protect". For just P34 per month, get up to Php20,000 in insurance coverage for incomplete deliveries, defective items, accidentally-damaged, or stolen products.

The new offering, which will launch soon on GInsure, is powered by global insurance company, Chubb.

Aside from continuing to beef up its security measures, GCash has also been ramping up its partnership with authorities and regulators to help ensure the whole e-wallet ecosystem is safe for all.

During the #GSafeTayo media launch, GCash also signed a memorandum of agreement with the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG) to strengthen collaboration in going after perpetrators involved in phishing, smishing, online fraud, e-scams, vishing, and other cybercrimes that take advantage of GCash users.

“I would like to express my confidence that through our stronger partnership with the PNP-ACG, we will be able to achieve more in the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of cybercrimes. GCash also assures the PNP-ACG that we will do whatever we can in order to successfully implement our agreement,” said GCash Chief Legal Officer Atty. Maricor Alvarez-Adriano.

Through its intensified security campaign under #GSafeTayo, GCash has also been constantly reminding its users to never share their MPIN or OTP, as well as to never click links outside of the GCash app, especially from websites or senders which you have not verified to be legitimate.

In fact, GCash has already removed all clickable links in its official SMS and emails to users to help them determine that when they receive messages with links, then these are scams.

The e-wallet has also migrated transaction notification messages to the in-app inbox and masked the names of send money recipients to further protect the users’ funds and personal data.

Through its revitalized security campaign, GCash is aiming to mitigate scam incidents by employing a combination of user education, increased cooperation with law enforcement agencies, as well as continuously upgrading its internal security platform.

Jesus Reigns Celebration All Set on Nov. 30

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Come and celebrate the biggest Christian worship festival in the Philippines this November 30, 2022 as Jesus Reigns Philippines Celebration gathers all Christian believers in all 82 provinces across the Philippines.

This is an annual festival held to honor Jesus Christ alone and to proclaim that HE REIGNS over our beloved Philippines and all nations. In this celebration, JESUS is the center highlight. No church names, no personalities are acknowledged except JESUS alone. 

After two years of virtual celebration due to the pandemic, Jesus Reigns as a movement is now ready to go out on the streets and worship as a united Body of Christ. On its 11th year, over a million people all across the Philippines will come and declare that JESUS REIGNS over every home, city, province and the whole Philippines.

One Voice. One Lord. One Nation. 2022 is the Year of No Compromise.

We are taking it from 2 Kings 18: 5-7 which states: “Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after his time. He remained faithful to the LORD in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the LORD had given Moses. So the LORD was with him, and Hezekiah was successful in everything he did.”

We believe if we publicly come together as a nation and declare that Jesus Reigns in our hearts and live it out without compromising, the Lord will bless and prosper our nation.

Join the celebration as NCR kicks it off at 6am with a grand parade in Greenhills, EDSA to People’s Power Monument with people marching, dancing, singing and making a joyful sound pronouncing that JESUS REIGNS. Then celebrate the festival at Amoranto Stadium at 3pm.

Be amazed by the creative movements of worship of art, dance and music. As a finale, a spectacular grand fireworks display and feasting from every city takes place.

Be a part of this celebration in your province. Visit websites for more information: https://jesusreigns.ph and https://www.facebook.com/jrpcncr/

Could blockchain-based insurance solve agricultural pains in the Philippines?

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The Philippines is one of the most typhoon-prone countries in the world, dealing with an average of 20 occurrences per year. According to the Philippine Climate Change and Food Security Analysis (CCFSA) study commissioned by the World Food Programme, typhoons and other extreme weather events have cost the country approximately Php 290 million in agricultural damages in the last decade. The recent typhoon Paeng alone caused Php 3.16 billion in damages to the sector.

Agriculture is a major industry in the Philippine economy, representing about ten percent of its gross domestic product. At the groundwork of the industry are small-scale farmers, usually holding less than three hectares of farmland, leading agricultural production. Despite being the major contributors to the industry, most of these farmers live in poverty. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) states that most rice farmers got a net return per hectare of Php 16,832 in 2020, which is a little more than 20% of the average Php 70,000 per hectare capital required for rice farming.

With limited financial means, farmers heavily rely on loans to raise capital for their work. This situation makes them vulnerable when they lose income when crops are destroyed by floods and droughts. With their initial mortgage unpaid, farmers often raise capital through fresh loans, exposing them to a high risk of debt accumulation.

“Farmer productivity has declined over the years due to insufficient support. Often, families of farmers decide to sell land for more immediate income amid pressing needs and what would have been the next generation of farmers are seen to pursue better-paying jobs,” shared Mario Berta, Country Manager for the Philippines at Igloo. “On top of these challenges, there are recurring natural disasters that significantly hurt the livelihoods of farmers. This calls for a strengthened initiative that will mitigate the impact of catastrophes.”

While extreme weather conditions may not be prevented, preparations can be made to ensure the fastest recovery for the agriculture sector. The provision of crop insurance can help and will enable farmers to begin farming anew after a calamity. However, the current process of insurance claims settlement takes a lot of time and requires tedious backend processing. In addition to this, agents have to brave the difficult journey of visiting farms in the wake of typhoons and manually assess the damage to the insured’s assets. This extended processing time adds to further loss of income for the farmers.

“Crop insurance needs to be automated so the farmers can receive their payouts sooner and get back on their feet quicker,” said Berta.

Igloo is a regional insurtech firm with a mission to make insurance accessible and affordable for all through technology. It facilitates digital insurance underwritten by partner insurance companies and offered in partner distribution channels such as e-commerce platforms and mobile wallets. Recently, Igloo introduced Weather Index Insurance, its first blockchain-based parametric insurance that automates claims through a smart contract on the blockchain.

Weather Index Insurance is an innovative approach to insurance provision that pays out benefits on the basis of a rainfall level, the predetermined index, for loss of assets and investments resulting from weather and catastrophic events. The claim is automatically paid when the rain index hits the flood or drought threshold. This eliminates the need to individually verify claims thereby reducing transaction costs, and allowing for a quicker claims settlement process. The business rules governing claims payout being hosted on a public blockchain help leverage the attributes of transparency, consistency, and unbiasedness thereby making the setup credible.

“We believe that Weather Index Insurance is a potential product that will reduce the vulnerability of farmers to adverse weather conditions. The expected increase in the speed of claims processing will enable farmers to have a better chance of recovery from catastrophes and increase productivity and competitiveness,” added Berta.

However, he also recognized that there are enormous challenges needed to be addressed to make blockchain-based insurance palatable to farmers. These hurdles include the country’s low insurance penetration rate, financial inclusion, and access to digital services in rural areas, among others.

“When we bring Weather Index Insurance to the Philippines, Igloo will work with organizations such as rural banks, farmer’s cooperatives, and relevant government agencies to address these pain points and ensure that the insurance solution becomes a viable option that farmers can rely on for faster recovery,” said Berta.

“The unprecedented pace of climate change coupled with COVID-19 induced supply chain shocks have made it absolutely necessary to scale up agri-insurance solutions for the smallholder farming community. Igloo is trying to bring forth an integrated approach with the wider ecosystem to strengthen farm-level resilience by focusing on product and distribution innovation,” shared Raunak Mehta, Co-founder and CEO at Igloo.

The Weather Index Insurance is available in Vietnam but is set to roll out in more agriculture-driven SEA countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. Igloo is currently speaking to potential partners that can underwrite and distribute the product to underserved farmers in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Committed to delivering Insurance for All, Igloo welcomes more collaboration with the public and private sector to guarantee the highest level of national protection.

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About Igloo:

Igloo is the first full-stack insurtech firm to emerge from Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia and tech centres in India and China. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, optimise and enhance existing products and services. Igloo has partnered with over 55 well-known brand names across the markets in various verticals, including insurance, telecommunications, e-commerce, hospitality, health tech and financial services.

For more information, please visit https://www.iglooinsure.com/.