Comm’l banks still main conduit for OFW inflows

DAVAO CITY – The country’s commercial banks, including several foreign players, remained the main conduit for the remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), accounting for more than 93.6 percent of all remittances entering the Philippines.

In 2004, the commercial banks accounted for $7.15 billion of the total $8.6-billion remittances that passed through the formal sector. Last year, remittances through the formal sector reached $10.6 billion.

Based on data from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and various non-government organizations (NGOs), remittances passing through the informal sector amounted to almost half of the total, or roughly $4 billion last year.

Meanwhile, thrift and development banks accounted for $43.6 million or 0.6 percent of the market. Rural banks, on the other hand, accounted for around $60 million in 2004.

The country’s banking system consists of 879 banks, of which 41 or five percent are commercial banks, 84 thrift and development banks, and 754 or 86 percent are rural banks.

Based on data compiled by the Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos (ERCOF) Philippines Inc., 17 financial institutions service remittances through branches, affiliates or agents in 30 countries. Of the 41 commercial banks, 16 are involved in remittance operations, and only four from thrift banks.

The six major commercial banks are Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), Equitable PCI Bank, Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), Metropolitan Bnak and Trust Co. (Metrobank), the Philippine National Bank (PNB), and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC).

ERCOF president Ildefonso F. Bagasao said, however, that rural banks have not been taking advantage of their better access to families of OFWs and migrant Filipinos in drawing more remittances.

"The rural banking system only entered the remittance market in 1998 as pay-out and domestic transfer partners of large remittance companies. This is understandable, since interconnectivity and utilization of clearinghouse facilities are key to direct remittance operations, and on which rural banks then have no access or participation due to the high infrastructure or participation cost on clearinghouse facilities," Bagasao said before the 53rd national convention of the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP) here.

The US Money Transfer Association estimated, meanwhile, that the average remittance made by a Filipino migrant worker is about $250 made from eight to 10 times a year.

An ADB study, on the other hand, indicated that the average monthly remittance amount sent by migrants in the Philippines was at $340, sent monthly or more frequently.

Another source of money flows are those raised by overseas Filipino associations or individuals and then remitted or brought over to the Philippines for some charitable, benevolent or development purpose.