Financial inclusion needed to get ‘unbanked’ Filipinos — Dominguez

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III has stressed the primacy of continuously introducing technological innovations to the country’s banking system as a way to bring “unbanked” Filipinos to the financial mainstream and effectively mobilize local capital for investments.

Dominguez said premier financial institutions will play pivotal roles in helping the Duterte administration realize its goal of financial inclusion for all Filipinos through innovations that would help the country rapidly modernize its banking system.

“Over 86 percent of Filipinos remain unbanked to this day. That is an intolerable ratio of the population excluded from the financial mainstream. We aim to reduce that number dramatically over the next few years. Continuous technological innovation in banking practices will help bring us closer to financial inclusion,” Dominguez said.

The finance chief said the economy’s better-than-expected growth of 6.9 percent in the third quarter, fueled mainly by the expansion in the manufacturing sector, has encouraged the government all the more in accomplishing its goal of investment-led growth.

Shifting the source of growth from consumption to investments, Dominguez said, will enable the government to create more meaningful jobs for the country’s young population.

This shift to investment-led growth, however, would require a more “robust and innovative” financial sector to fund new investments, Dominguez said.

“I am confident an efficient institution such as Maybank will be an invaluable partner in helping us grow our enterprises,” Dominguez said.

“We cannot have a new economy with an ancient banking system. We look to innovative institutions such as Maybank to help us rapidly modernize our banking system, to introduce more technology and better practices in the industry. I trust you will be an effective partner in this regard,” he added.

Dominguez made the statement during the anniversary celebration of the Maybank Group, which set up its offices in the Philippines in 1997 and is the fourth largest bank in the ASEAN region.

As early as 1978, Maybank pioneered the computerization of banking operations in Malaysia and was the first bank to introduce Internet banking 17 years ago with the launch of its Maybank2u program. Dominguez congratulated MayBank “for its two fruitful decades in the country” and wished it “greater success in the decades to come as you help clear the road towards more intensive financial integration in the region.”

The finance chief said he is confident that Maybank, with its “sterling record in setting benchmarks for banking practices,” would play a key role in the government’s goal of achieving financial inclusion for all Filipinos through the bank’s digital banking roadmap.

“We need the keen experience of institutions like Maybank in getting more people enrolled in the banking sector, mobilizing capital effectively and allocating funds for investments adeptly,” Dominguez said.