SEVERAL financial institutions signed a multilateral agreement to disburse the second tranche of cash assistance under the government’s social amelioration program (SAP).
Union Bank of the Philippines, GCash, PayMaya, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC), Robinsons Bank and Starpay sealed the deal with government agencies—Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Land Bank of the Philippines—this week.
The agreement says that LandBank will release funds to be distributed to the public to the financial service providers.
The participating firms, meanwhile, will credit the financial assistance to the beneficiaries’ restricted transactional or nominated accounts after receiving the funds from LandBank.
UnionBank said it will be disbursing funds to 1.36 million beneficiaries out of the 7.124-million total SAP recipients.
The Aboitiz-led bank will start the release of cash subsidies next week in cooperation with its digital bank EON Bank, fintech subsidiary UBX and fintech partner Dragonpay.
“This latest undertaking is in response to the government’s call to provide a safe, efficient and transparent distribution of the emergency subsidy under the SAP, and aligned with UnionBank’s goal to be readily accessible to the most number of Filipinos,” UnionBank President Edwin Bautista said.
In a separate statement, RCBC said it was set to release around P4.6 billion in emergency cash assistance to approximately 800,000 recipients via disbursement platform DiskarTech Lite.
“The process has especially been designed to be easy and safe for the benefit of the people and the government,” said Angelito M. Villanueva, executive vice president and chief innovation and inclusion officer of RCBC.
DiskarTech has teamed up with rural banks, cooperatives, pawnshops, lending center and microfinance institutions, among others, to deliver offsite payment for the government subsidies.
It will be available in Pangasinan, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, Batangas, Cavite, Laguna, Albay and Cebu.
“This promotes greater financial inclusion as it gives the SAP beneficiaries restricted transaction accounts which they will use moving forward to save, pay bills, and receive any future subsidy in an efficient manner rather than a one-time transaction for disbursement,” DSWD Secretary Rolando Bautista said.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes