Stories of Finding Ways

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Jenny Wieneke

Tokyo Tempura CFO and Chief Marketing Officer

Making it work: How Jenny kept her business going

”I was fortunate that years before the pandemic began, I had already registered my personal accounts--both savings and current--with BDO’s online banking service.

Because of this, I was personally much affected by the disruptions in financial transactions due to the pandemic. I just noticed that there were times when the app would not function--but I attributed this to the sudden surge in the number of users. After all, nearly everyone with a BDO account was forced to go online because of the pandemic and quarantine.

We did, however, have problems with our corporate accounts  because they were not enrolled in the online banking service. Because of this, we had to physically go to the bank branch for corporate transactions. Since our village was on total lockdown. I had to request our messenger to bring over forms for me to sign so we could do transactions for the company.

As mentioned, my savings and current accounts are enrolled online, and this service is much appreciated as it actually helped us survive the Enchanced Community Quarantine, both personally and as businessowners. Since I did not have access to my corporate accounts online, I used my personal savings account for online payments in the meantime.

Even if most of our stores are located in malls, we could not let the pandemic stop our business. So we shifted to sell of frozen Tokyo Tempura Home Kits online. I had to have visibility on the transactions coming in so I could transfer funds from sales to our corporate account. Imagine that! We were able to sustain our employees through the lockdown with selling our tempura kits online.

I wouldn’t have been able to do that if my BDO Savings Account wasn’t enrolled online. I also appreciate the fact that the fees were waived at this time, so it was painless to transfer from one account to another, even inter-bank. I chose to stick with BDO because BDO chose to stick with me. We love our BDO branch in Power Plant Mall. Their service is superb and they always find ways to ease customer transactions.

Our bank is not just a bank to us, the people in there are like family. Tokyo Tempura has been a long-time client of the bank and we are quite happy with their service.”

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