OFW remittances up 12% in Q1

Banks reported a 12-percent expansion in remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the first quarter of the year, reaching $2.8 billion due to a slight increase in the number of deployed workers abroad and the declining use of non-bank channels as remittance agents.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said over the weekend that based on reports by the banking industry, OFW remittances in January to March this year surpassed the $2.5 billion recorded in the same period last year.

In March alone, the BSP said OFWs remitted a total of $1.031 billion, almost 15.6 percent higher than the year ago level of $892.49 million.

According to the BSP, the increase in OFW remittances reported by banks was attributable mainly to the expansion in the remittance network of the banking industry which enabled them to capture segments that used to be served by informal channels.

The BSP said that commercial banks, in particular, were even more aggressive in providing transfer services and coming up with innovations to entice OFWs to use banks instead of couriers.

The BSP said more banks are providing such services as telemoney products and services such as phone-banking, Internet/online banking, bills payment services, specifically in Hong Kong, USA, Italy and the UK.

The BSP said banks are likewise strengthening and expanding their tie-ups with foreign money transfer agents and non-bank channels.

"These activities by commercial banks overshadowed the decline in the total number of deployed overseas workers," the BSP said.

Preliminary figures from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) indicated that for the first three months of 2006, the total number of deployed workers went up slightly to 267,985 from last year’s 266,931.

Land-based workers deployed abroad declined by 2.7 percent to 199,665 but this was partly offset by the 10.8-percent increase in the number of sea-based workers to 68,320.

The BSP said the increased deployment of highly-skilled, thus, higher-paid land-based workers compensated for the reduction in the number of workers going abroad.

The BSP said deployed labor were mainly engineers, teachers, ship and pilot/aircraft officers, production related workers and service providers.

The BSP said the major sources of remittances remained to be the US, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, U.K., United Arab Emirates and Singapore.