Pinoy overseas bank opens early next year

The new bank created by President Duterte for Filipinos abroad will start operations in January. Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the Overseas Filipino Bank (OFB) “will become a reality because of the sincere desire of our President to service the OFWs.”

The President has issued Executive Order 44 approving the acquisition of the Philippine Postal Savings Bank Inc. (PPSB) by the Land Bank and its conversion into the OFB.

Apart from converting the 116 Postbank branches into OFB offices, Bello said the new bank will also establish outlets in Philippine labor offices across the world.

Bello said he could not say if the OFB could provide free remittance service “but at least it will be a cheaper remittance fee.”

He said the bank will cover not only overseas Filipino workers but all Filipinos abroad who are “contributing a lot to the Philippine economy.”

“In fact, they helped in the remittance of not less than $28 billion for the year 2016. That’s why they have a significant contribution,” he said.

Bello said he would propose three board seats in the OFW board representing overseas Filipino community, instead of just one. He said he would consult with the OFW community if they would like to divert some P600 million worth of planned rebate to buy bank shares.

“We are supposed to give by the end of this year a rebate to the OFWs. And we are now in the process of computing how much we will be spending as rebate to our OFWs,” he said.

“Instead of giving it individually to our OFWs, we are thinking of using this amount to buy into the OF bank to entitle the OFWs to at least three board seats,” he said.