DOF: OF Bank to leapfrog PH to digital economy

A BANK launched recently by the government to cater to the needs of an estimated 10 million overseasbased Filipinos is the ideal vehicle for the Philippines to “leapfrog” to the digital economy, according to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III.

Dominguez said leapfrogging or advancing significantly in the digital economy could be done in the Philippines because it has not yet fully embraced computer technologies, unlike in other countries that have already invested heavily in software and hardware that are now fast becoming obsolete.

The Overseas Filipino Bank (OFB), which was launched last January by President Rodrigo R. Duterte, could be the starting point for the country’s jump into the data-based economy, so that instead of setting up physical branches across the globe, the Bank could just rely on digital technology applications to serve as many overseas-based Filipinos as possible, Dominguez said.

Ten million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) could be the initial beneficiaries of this technological leapfrog that would radically transform the way Filipinos buy, receive and sell and distribute goods and services.

Dominguez said this was one of the main points that stood out when a Philippine delegation led by him took part in the three-day New Economy workshop organized by the Alibaba Business School of technology entrepreneur Jack Ma in Hangzhou, China last Jan. 31 to Feb. 2.

The workshop, the first overseas government training program hosted by Alibaba, was organized following Ma’s invitation last year for Dominguez and other Philippine officials to learn more about his company’s digital infrastructure for e-commerce.

“Among the takeaways we had as a group there was that the Philippines has the opportunity of leapfrogging a lot of (digital) applications because we are not too much computerized yet, unlike other countries that have hard investments in hardware which is fast becoming obsolete but they still hang on to them because they invested so much money in them,” Dominguez told reporters.

The OFB, Dominguez said, could be transformed into a virtual bank where bank tellers and managers would be replaced by information technology (IT) experts who have the knowledge to manage large amounts of data and operate the OFB using cutting-edge technologies.

“A bank can be operated without any branches. You just operate it through your smart phones. You can open an account for 10 million OFWs without them having to go to a branch and opening one up,” Dominguez said.

“We have already have a good size of potential OFWs abroad and that’s already 10 million, Land Bank has five million account holders, so why can’t we deal with them through smartphones?” he added.