Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the fulfillment of the 2016 campaign promise of President Duterte to establish the first-ever bank dedicated to the needs of overseas-based Filipinos will help unlock investment opportunities for our countrymen based abroad and allow them to join the financial mainstream of the surging Philippine economy.
The Overseas Filipino Bank (OFB), which was launched on Thursday, is envisioned to provide a wide array of financial services to overseas Filipinos, especially the country’s migrant workers, so that they would no longer be vulnerable to expensive remittance services and investment scams, Dominguez said.
Dominguez said the OFB will handle remittances, support investments made by overseas-based Filipinos, and help build their financial literacy as well as “financial sophistication.”
According to Dominguez, he has asked the office of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano to instruct Philippine embassies across the globe to help disseminate the good news about the OFB to overseas-based Filipinos.
“The OFB is another step towards reshaping our economic progress to make it more inclusive. It will help fulfill our goal of shifting to an investment-driven economy. More important, our overseas workers would be able to invest in their country which they have helped transform into one of the fastest-growing economies in the region,” said Dominguez at the launching of the OFB Headquarters at the former Philippine Postal Savings Bank (PostBank) head office in Liwasang Bonifacio, Manila.
President Duterte himself led the launching of the OFB, fulfilling a campaign promise he made during the 2016 presidential campaign to establish a bank catering exclusively to the needs of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
Dominguez said the Bank was initially conceptualized as a financial institution for OFWs, but its coverage was expanded to include all Filipinos based overseas to make it more inclusive.
“There is no other institution like this one,” said Dominguez.
“Establishing the OFB fulfills President Duterte’s campaign promise to Filipinos working abroad in order to support their dependents at home. It will help unlock investment opportunities and a wide array of financial products so that our overseas workers will be able to join the financial mainstream of our rising economy,” he added.
As a subsidiary of the Land Bank of the Philippines, Dominguez said the OFB can be assured of “exemplary financial expertise and sufficient capital to ensure its success.”
In September last year, the President issued Executive Order No. 44 ordering the Philippine Postal Corporation and the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) to transfer their PostBank shares to LandBank at zero value.
The EO further stated that the former PostalBank will be converted into the “Overseas Filipino Bank,” which will be a “policy bank dedicated to provide financial products and services tailored to the requirement of overseas Filipinos” and will focus on delivering “quality and efficient foreign remittance services.”
All obstacles to the opening of the bank have now been removed following last week’s approval by the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) of the acquisition by the LandBank of the PostBank.
Dominguez said that besides fulfilling a campaign promise made during the presidential elections, the conversion of PostalBank into the OFB also saved the former from bankruptcy.
He said the DOF and LandBank are also planning to secure licenses in other countries with large concentrations of overseas Filipinos so the LandBank can provide financial advisory services to the Filipino communities in these areas.
