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Remember
when tycoon Lucio Tan predicted the foreign exchange
rate would be P40 to the dollar by 2010? That was the
time the peso was reaching P60 and everybody thought it
would go further north to P70 or P80.
Well,
Tan obviously knew a thing or two that others didn’t and
have already made money on that knowledge.
Now, all
these foreign bank analysts, with all their charts and
second-hand data, are glibly predicting the peso would
hit P40 a year earlier than Tan’s prediction or by
end-2009, in part because the US dollar is weakening
against all currencies and in part because all those
remittances from overseas Filipino workers keep on
coming in.
Did you
know 1:
Although
we are Spain’s only former colony in Asia, the
Philippines is not in the radar of Spanish investors.
In fact,
there is no major Spanish company currently doing
business in the country (well, importing Spanish wines
and deli stuff don’t count), which cannot be said for
neighboring Asean nations.
Then
again, Spanish isn’t widely spoken here either.
Did you
know 2:
A reorganization of sorts is currently going on at the
Philippine News Agency (PNA), government’s wire service
that has fallen on hard times.
For one
thing, PNA intends to hire more people next year. For
another, it wants to beef up its content to include,
among others, more business stories. Right now, PNA
services mainly publications in the provinces and
overseas (read: the OFW market).
Interestingly, overseas Filipino workers (OFW) in
Malaysia prefer to deal with Western Union rather than
with commercial banks. Yes, they pay more in service
charges but their families in the Philippines get their
money the same day.
And
despite the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas statement that
more than 80 percent of all remittances worldwide are
now coursed through the banking system, everybody else
(read: these include the banks themselves) agree the
banks’ share is more like 50 percent.
Then
again, banks still have to address certain working
realities of OFWs. Here are three:
§
Bank
hours: Domestic helpers in Hongkong, for example, only
have Sundays off while nurses working two shifts
everyday in New York have odd hours off to go to the
bank;
§
High
service charge ranging from $18 to $40 per transaction:
This is probably reasonable for someone in Saudi Arabia
sending $200 a month to his family here but not for an
OFW in Singapore who wants to control the spending
pattern of her unemployed husband and kids by sending
the money little by little during the month; and
§
Emergencies: Banks are not flexible when it comes to
helping an OFW send money home immediately to cover the
hospitalization of a relative and, equally important,
ensure the family here receives the money as quickly as
possible. |
