Importance of financial education, tech raised at Home Credit forum

FINANCIAL education has become more crucial today as many people struggle to cope with the economic impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, according to the panelists of a recent virtual forum held by Home Credit Philippines.

During the forum, Sheila Paul, Home Credit Philippines’ chief marketing officer, emphasized technology’s role in enabling financial education and literacy, saying financial institutions like hers “are fully and quickly embracing digital technologies to reach more people and cater to the public’s ever-changing needs.”

With Home Credit’s own digital literacy program, she added, the consumer finance provider teaches its clients how to use electronic money, mobile phone wallets and internet banking.

“Digital literacy alongside financial literacy is really about competence and knowledge of how to access and use digital products and services, such as mobile phones, tablets and the internet. We want to continue promoting that,” Paul explained.

As a result, she said, Home Credit is seeing more customers using the firm’s mobile app.

“They are really interacting with us through that channel, so much [so] that we see 2.2 million-plus active mobile app users” monthly, she added.

Meanwhile, Rochelle Tomas, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas deputy director for the Consumer Empowerment Group, said the central bank had shifted its “approach to financial education to partnerships in order for us to be a little bit more strategic.”

According to her, the central bank partnered with key government and private sector partners to promote not only financial literacy, but also digital literacy.

“Our objective is for our general population to be financially literate [and] capable, and then ultimately — because they are both literate and capable to make prudent decisions about their finances, and use digital financial services or traditional financial services — help them to be become financially healthy,” she added.

Also during the forum, state-owned public credit registry Credit Information Corp. (CIC) announced that it underwent a digital transformation of its own to better serve the public.

“Due to increased borrowing caused by Covid-19, we decided to digitize our services, where individual borrowers get to access their own credit information using their mobile devices through one of our accredited credit bureaus, CIBI with its CIBIApp,” said Aileen Amor-Bautista, CIC’s officer in charge, president and chief executive officer.

Prior to the pandemic, accessing one’s credit information from the CIC was quick and convenient, but also manual and paper-based, requiring consumers to be physically present at CIC premises for the knowyour-customer purposes.

“With this app, identity verification is done online to help secure the process, especially since travel is restricted and everyone is advised to do social distancing,” Amor-Bautista said. MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO