Overseas Filipino Bank to be inaugurated today

ANOTHER campaign promise of President Rodrigo Duterte will be the Overseas Filipino Bank (OFB), the Finance department said on Wednesday.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd, in a statement, said all obstacles to the bank’s establishment had been cleared with the Philippine Competition Commission’s ( PCC) approval of Land Bank of the Philippines’ takeover of the moribund Postal Savings Bank.

The launch will be held at the PostBank Center at the Liwasang Bonifacio at two in the afternoon.

“It’s just a matter of the administrative integration of the bank,” Dominguez said. “It’s an administrative thing and all the approvals have been cleared away for the acquisition.”

his (President Duterte’s) campaign promises one by one. First, tax reform, then this new bank,” he added.

The PCC decision, released just last week, followed a December

approval by the Monetary Board.

Executive Order ( EO) 44, issued by Duterte in September, ordered Philippine Postal Corp. and the Bureau of the Treasury ( BTr) to transfer their PostalBank shares to LandBank at zero value.

PostalBank would then be renamed Overseas Filipino Bank, which would be “dedicated to - vices tailored to the requirement of overseas Filipinos”.

Previously conceptualized as a bank catering exclusively to the needs of overseas Filipino workers, OFB’s mandate was later expanded to include services for all foreignbased Filipinos to make it more inclusive.

Dominguez said the Finance department and LandBank were also planning to secure licenses in other countries so the latter can to the Filipino communities there.

OFB will become a subsidiary of LandBank, which the Finance chief described as “the governmentowned and -controlled bank with the most extensive branch network that will cater to the needs of the families of foreign-based Filipinos.”

A key feature of the OFB will be its provision of remittance services for overseas Filipino workers and a loan program for Filipinos planning to return here to start businesses or build homes.

LandBank and the Treasury bureau are also exploring ways of mobilizing the savings of overseasbased Filipinos for them to invest in the country’s capital markets, Dominguez said.