Government-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) is looking to expand its branch network in so-called lower-ranked municipalities this year following the recent opening of a branch in Samal Island.
In a statement on Wednesday, the state-controlled bank said it targets to open in particularly lower-ranked municipalities across the country at least 19 more branches after the Samal Island branch opening.
“A number of selected locations for our new branches belong to fourth-to sixth-class municipalities, the same areas we targeted in our financial-inclusion caravan,” LandBank President and CEO Alex Buenaventura said.
“This is still in line with our fervent drive to promote greater financial inclusion, especially among Filipinos in the unbanked and underserved rural areas,” the banker added.
The bank also said more than half of the targeted new branches will be opened in Mindanao. The government lender said more or less 10 new branches will be opened by this year.
For Luzon, LandBank is looking to open seven new branches and an additional two more in the Visayas, bringing the new bank branch establishments to 19 this year.
The latest LandBank branch established in Samal Island brings the lender’s total number of branches and extension offices to 380.
The Island Garden City of Samal is a fourth-class city in the province of Davao del Norte.
“With LandBank’s presence in the Island Garden City of Samal, we look forward to be part of and be able to contribute to the economic growth of this city that is rich with potential to be one of our country’s well-loved tourist destinations,” Buenaventura said.
The lender previously acquired the moribund Philippine Postal Savings Bank that, in January this year, was reconfigured as LandBank subsidiary lender and now known as the Overseas Filipino Bank (OFB).
Its proponents seek eventually to deploy overseas units to better serve the remittance and funding requirements of millions of overseas Filipinos.
So-called representative offices even now are to be made available in countries with huge concentrations of OFWs.