Bureau of Treasury urges Cebuanos to invest in ‘Premyo Bonds’

CEBU CITY – Cebuanos will now have a chance to become an investor through the Bureau of Treasury’s (BTR) “Premyo Bonds,” according to Deputy Treasurer Sharon Almanza, who was here recently for a road show on their new investment product which encourage retail investors to buy smaller denomination of bonds.

“Premyo Bonds is an inaugural offering of the Bureau of Treasury and it’s an instrument to encourage retail investors while at the same time raising funding for the government. So we will be using the proceeds for financing our requirements for the year especially for our requirements to finance capital expenditure and at the same time human capital development to support education and health,” Almanza said.

The Premyo Bonds public offer started on November 25 and will end on December 13, 2019 and this type of bond will mature after one year, she said, adding, investors can buy Premyo Bonds with a minimum investment of P500 and in multiples of P500 thereafter.

“We want to encourage the new investors to invest in government securities. The maturity is very short. It’s one year unlike our regular TB (treasury bonds), the tenor is three, or five or 10 years. The coupon or the interest rate is better than the regular time deposit. At the same time, the exciting part is the investor will have a chance to win non-cash and cash components,”almanza said.

These bonds have an interest rate of three percent per annum with payment to be credited to the settlement account of the investor every quarter. The non-cash reward like condominium unit or house and lot can be won side by side with the cash component of P1 million for one winner, P100,000 for 10 winners, and P20,000 for 50 winners.

The deputy treasurer said that ordinary investors must have a savings or current account with the selling agent banks (Land Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), BDO, Union Bank, Unibank, BDO Capital, Chinabank, and Metrobank) before they can buy the Premyo Bonds.

Francis Nicolas Chua, DBP First Vice President, said that ordinary investors can apply for the bonds online through the www.treasury.gov.ph.

“If you already have an account with those banks, then you can also apply online but you have to be first enrolled to their online facility. You don’t even need to go to your branch. You click on the Premyo Bonds link. You fill in the forms. You choose the bank account, the settlement bank where you will get the funds to pay for the bonds and dun din po papasok ang interest payment every quarter to your account and dun din po pupunta ang principal payment at the end of the one year whatever you invested,” Chua said.

He said that every P500 of investment is equivalent to one raffle ticket. “While there is no limit to the investment itself, there is a limit to number of tickets of an investor which is equivalent to P10 million. We don’t want any investor to have control over the raffle so that other investors will have chance of winning,” he said.

Almanza, however, said the limit of tickets per investor applies only per selling agent bank. It means that an investor can have tickets in every bank that he utilized to place his Premyo Bonds investment. (John Rey Saavedra)