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By The Manila Times
February 23, 2023
ALMOST 6 million Filipinos were able to open their very first bank account last year after completing the Step 2 registration for the national ID, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Wednesday.In partnership with the state-run Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank), the PSA said 8.4 million unbanked Filipinos were onboarded in 2022.
Of this number, 5.8 million were able to open transaction accounts."The opening of a bank account is the first step toward financial inclusion, which is one of the benefits from PhilSys," PSA Undersecretary and National Statistician Dennis Mapa said in a statement."In partnership with LandBank, millions of Filipinos were able to open their very first bank account that they can use for savings, safer and faster money remittance, payment of bills, and other online transactions," Mapa said.The PSA and LandBank achieved this goal through a co-location strategy, where registered persons were able to open transactional accounts with LandBank in PhilSys registration centers after their Step 2 registration.
.This service is free and provides those registered access to financial services with the issuance of a banking card that requires no initial deposit and no maintaining balance.PhilSys registrants who were issued LandBank Prepaid Cards used their accounts for various financial transactions.As of Dec. 31, 2022, the bank recorded 108,473 transactions made by registered persons through its mobile banking application, point-of-sale and over-the-counter transactions through various LandBank branches amounting to P275.8 million.
PSA and LandBank continue to work together in opening accounts for registered persons via LandBank's agent banking partners nationwide and through the mobile app LANDBANKPay.The bank will also continue to issue prepaid cards to registrants who have transactional accounts but have not yet been issued prepaid cards during the onboarding and co-location.
