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THE over
2,000 branches of the Postal Bank presents an attractive
conduit for the remittances of Filipinos working abroad,
according to Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo
Neri, who thus recommended to President Arroyo to allow
the Postal Corp., the privatized post office operations
of government, to handle the remittances.
He
argued the Postal Bank can offer cheaper services as a
money and communications center for overseas Filipino
workers.
The
President earlier ordered Neri to look for ways to help
the more than 8 million overseas Filipinos cope with the
continued peso appreciation that eats into their
remittances, which were up 26.08 percent to $4.68
billion in the first quarter.
“The
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has a website where OFWs can
compare remittance rates of financial institutions.
These private banks, I think, will lower their charges
if Postal Corp. eventually competes with them
rate-wise,” said Neri.
He
continues to support, however, the plan for government
to put up an OFW Bank, that has been delayed by some
problems.
Such an
OFW bank would require capitalization of P1 billion to
be sourced from the Overseas Workers Welfare
Administration and is seen to eventually tie up with
Postal Bank to enable it to capture a bigger slice of
the remittance trade.
Some of
the country’s major banks and remittance companies have
found the remittance trade to be more lucrative than
lending, noted Neri. |
