Andres Panganiban, founder of the New Rural Bank of San Leonardo in Nueva Ecija, passed away on April 1 at 67.
A banker since 1976, Panganiban worked as credit investigator for Security Bank, for the Bahamas-based Amherst Financial Group Inc. (AFG) and later as credit analyst for Chase Manhattan Bank in 1980.
The second youngest in a brood of 12, Panganiban was born to a family of businessmen at a fishing village in Malabon, Rizal. He attended grade school at Tonsuya Elementary School in Malabon, obtained secondary education at Saint Joseph Academy in Caloocan City and finished business management and obtained masters degrees at the Ateneo de Manila University.
He founded the nongovernment organization Asia-Pacific Mission for Migrant Filipinos in Hong Kong and was its executive director until 1991.
After the ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos, Panganiban returned to the Philippines and, on June 10, 1994, launched the NRBSL on a P5-million pooled capital. By the end of 1994, NRBSL had P32 million in resources, P4.5 million in deposits and P P6.3million in loans.
Panganiban wrote his experiences in undertaking banking for the poor in a book titled “Barefoot banking: Microfinance in the Philippines,” published in 1998.