SSS PESO Program and Pointwest Technologies: Public-Private Partnership for A Brighter Future
wpengine
October 12, 2015
The Social Security System (SSS) has collaborated with Pointwest Technologies Corporation, a leading fully Filipino-owned IT company by contracting them to undertake one of the agency’s core projects.
In 2014, the SSS unveiled its Personal Equity and Saving Option (PESO) Fund. The PESO Fund aims to give Filipino workers — whether in the Philippines or abroad — more options to prepare for the future through a voluntary provident fund. The end objective is to provide the SSS members with a platform to further enhance their options for savings for the future.
“Through this program, members who have the capacity to contribute more than the statutory requirement are given the opportunity to save more in order to receive additional benefits in the future,” the SSS said in a statement.
SSS members can presently avail of the PESO Fund by personally appearing at select SSS branches. Enrollment in all SSS branches nationwide, plus online enrollment are part of future plans.
To speed up the process and to bring the whole project into the digital age, SSS tapped Pointwest to develop the software solution that allows the system of the SSS to seamlessly interact with the PESO Fund’s online enrollment via “My SSS.”
The agreement was signed by SSS President and CEO Emilio de Quiros, Jr., SSS Senior Vice President for Information Technology Management Group (ITMG) Joel Layson, Pointwest President Maria Christina Coronel and Pointwest Senior Executive for Business Development Rene Quizon.
The system is PESO Fund’s online enrollment, which allows for a highly reliable interaction between the internal systems of SSS and the PESO Fund enrollment system.
“Pointwest is well aware that it is people’s life savings that are being handled to help members build a nest egg for a better future. We are helping SSS make sure that the system is as reliable as can be,” Rhea Latoga, one of Pointwest’s senior leaders who is in charge of the project said.
The PESO Fund is but one of several projects that Pointwest has embarked on with the public sector.
One of the company’s most successful public-private partnerships of Pointwest is with the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards, or Project NOAH, the disaster monitoring and hazards response unit of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). Pointwest developed the mobile app Arko, an extreme weather and flood hazards monitoring app for use by Project NOAH. Arko was the first Filipino-made app to win in the prestigious World Summit Awards for Mobile in 2014, and took the Best Philippine-made Mobile App of the Year Award in the 2015 International ICT Awards, the first for the new category. It is also in the top three of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Category of the 2015 ASEAN ICT Awards. The app is free for download for both iOS and Android mobile devices.
Since its inception in 2003, Pointwest has been providing top Fortune 500 companies in the USA with world-class IT services, ranging from mobile applications to entire IT backbone systems. The company has received recognition for the quality of its work, winning the Innovation award in the first ever ASEAN Business Awards Philippines in 2014, and repricing this again achieving a “two peat” as Best Filipino-Owned Company of the Year in the International ICT Awards Philippines (2014 and 2015).
