Golden Arches Development Corp. (McDonald’s Philippines) reinforces its commitment in being a responsible employer through a memorandum of agreement between the City of Pasay through Mayor Imelda Calixto-Rubiano and McDonald’s Philippines president and CEO Kenneth Yang.

McDonald’s will open its doors to 50 more senior citizen and so-called persons with disability employees in 14 participating stores in the city. The partnership will provide them the opportunity to earn and develop new skills as they experience the same world class training as an order presenter, drink drawer, table manager or overall guest relations.

The quick service restaurant has hired close to 100 SC and PWD since September and has rolled out in the cities of Manila and Pasig.

HID Global brings reliable biometrics authentication

In the past, biometrics solutions for access control were often deployed with reduced security thresholds because their imaging technology, which routinely yielded false fingerprint rejections, resulted in long authentication lines at the door. HID Global, a worldwide leader in trusted identity solutions, announced its new fingerprint reader that merges credential excellence with HID’s globally-patented multispectral imaging technology to address this issue and fuel broad adoption of biometrics at the door.

The high-performance iCLASS SE RB25F fingerprint reader provides an unrivalled experience by dramatically increasing image capture performance and fingerprint matching in under a second, significantly reducing delays that were previously symptomatic of biometric solutions.

“Driven by increasing threats to an organization’s security, biometric authentication is one of the fastest growing segments in the access control market,” said Alex Tan, sales director, ASEAN, Physical Access Control Solutions with HID Global. “The powerful combination of HID’s highly reliable Lumidigm multispectral technology and the reader’s robust construction with IP67 and anti-vandal IK09 ratings now enables customers to deploy fingerprint authentication across a wide range of real-life environments. The reader is also field-configurable over a network, and is designed to ease migration from traditional and existing fingerprint reader solutions.”

STI Holdings posts P157.8M 2Q net income

STI Holdings, owner of one of the largest networks of private schools in the Philippines, reported a net income of P157.8 million for the three-month period ending 30 September 2019.

The amount is 20 percent or P26 million higher than the P131.8 million it generated during the same period last year.

Based on its quarterly report submitted to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the company also said gross revenues went up by 4 percent or P31.3 million to P797.4 million from P766.1 million in the second quarter of last school year.

Gross profit, meanwhile, increased by 5 percent or P25.2 million year-on-year.

The increase stemmed from the 41 percent growth in new enrollees under programs regulated by the Commission on Higher Education that the group posted this school year, resulting in a total of 45,902 tertiary education population. This, in turn, accounts for 55 percent of the company’s 83,967 total student population for the current school year.

In addition, the margin of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) grew to 49 percent from 40 percent in the same period last school year. Operating income likewise went up by 29 percent to P203.6 million from P158 million year-on-year.

As the company’s line of business is in education, its fiscal year begins in April and ends in March of the following year, which is aligned with the schools’ academic calendar.

Aside from opening new campuses in Sta. Mesa, Manila; EDSA, Pasay City; San Jose Del Monte City, Bulacan; and Lipa City, STI Education Services Group, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Institute, has partnered with Raft Shore People Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of OSM Maritime Group, a multinational ship management and training company, to ensure that Filipino seafarers continue to be the preferred employees of international shipping companies.