Besides stress in the workplace and being homesick, high remittance fees and interest on borrowings add pressure on Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW). This may prove to be a hard time for them when they only have the exact sum of money to be sent.
However, the sun may have finally shone the OFWs way as the Department of Finance (DOF), as per ABS-CBN News, will open a bank intended for OFWs. The project will be administered by the Land Bank of the Philippines.
Three billion pesos was allotted as authorized capital to the OFW Bank, with two-thirds of it serving as subscribed capital. As per Land Bank president, Alex Buenaventura, it will ask the public on what services it should prioritize.
To better serve its future customers, the OFW Bank will construct its own representative office in Saudi Arabia, where the majority of our overseas workers are based. Being one of the world’s biggest overseas labor markets, the office would serve more than 80,000 Filipinos residing there.
The main reason why the OFW Bank will exist it to permit OFWs to send money to their chosen loved ones with the least amount of transaction cost. That means zero remittance fees for money senders and zero interest rates when they borrow from the bank.
On average, OFWs are paying 7.68% remittance fees and 5.2% interest on borrowings. Now that it is off the equation, they’ll have more dispensable income available for investment, daily needs, etc.
The bank’s construction serves as the fulfillment of President Duterte’s promise of putting the needs of OFWs in the limelight. It’s a sight to behold that it’s coming to fruition.
On an interview granted to Philippine Star, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III bared that the OFW Bank is the realization of the labor sector’s vision of benefitting migrant workers. He also admitted that the said bank will be partly owned by overseas workers as an act of paying back to the glory and economic success they’ve long brought to our country.
