The Department of Finance (DOF) has already submitted a draft executive order for the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) to service the financial needs of Filipinos working overseas.
According to Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, only the approval by President Duterte prevents the government from starting operations for the proposed bank that will be managed by LandBank.
“We need an executive order to execute the transfer of the bank from its current shareholders to the LandBank. We submitted it last week ahead of schedule. We expected to submit that sometime in October but we were able to submit it first week of September,” Dominguez told financial reporters.
The finance chief pointed out that the DOF recently spoke with Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III regarding the services that will be offered by the overseas Filipino bank. Remittance services and loan programs will be made available through the bank.
“We just had the discussion with Secretary Bello about the remittance program which is certainly going to be one of the features. Also the loan program for Filipinos abroad who are returning and would like to start businesses or build their homes. He seemed to be very happy about the service we would be providing,” Dominguez said.
Earlier in the year, Duterte promised to create a bank specifically to service the needs of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
According to LandBank President and CEO Alex V. Buenaventura, the government is looking to pilot the bank in the city of Dubai by January 2018.
“We will pilot this in Dubai. We hope to launch it in January [2018],” Buenaventura said.
The OFW bank will be established through LandBank’s acquisition of the Philippine Postal Savings Bank Inc. (Postal Bank), which will be converted into a LandBank subsidiary that will be owned 30 percent by OFWs.
The LandBank will set up a representative office in Saudi Arabia to cater to the banking needs of 800,000 Filipino workers based in that country.
The LandBank will have to seek clearances from the governance commission for government-owned and -controlled corporations and the Philippine Competition Commission, as well as approvals from the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In earlier reports, Dominguez said the transaction involving the buyout of the Postal Bank could take 11 months to finish. The thrift bank has total assets amounting to P12.07 billion as of March 2016.