Majority of Filipinos still do not have bank accounts as of 2017, a new report from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.
Of the reasons cited in the report, the BSP found that most Filipinos failed to meet the required minimum balance to open a bank account.
Results of the 2017 Financial Inclusion Survey showed that 22.6% or some 15.8 million Filipino adults maintained deposit accounts. The figure improved from 22% in 2015, but meant that 52.8 million adults still did not have accounts in formal financial institutions.
The report found that, among account holders, the top use case for these accounts is saving for emergency (42%) followed by saving for education (31%) and for business (29%).
The BSP found that accounts are still underutilized for payment and remittance transactions, with only 18% of account holders receiving salaries, 12% sending or receiving money, and 6% receiving pension through their accounts. — Melissa Luz T. Lopez
