MORE Dabawenyos are keen on attending financial literacy seminars to learn the importance of saving and know the right investment opportunities, First Metro Securities Brokerage Corporation, one of the companies that give out seminars on financial literacy in Davao City, has observed.
Investment Hub Business Development Section head Roberto Marco Samson said in an interview Wednesday, July 31, 2019, during the opening of their new investment hub at Abreeza Ayala Mall, that they have observed that Dabawenyos are now eager and interested on attending this kind of seminar, thus they need a bigger office to cater to attendees.
“There is a good demand. I was actually surprised when we first started giving out seminars here because the uptake was very overwhelming. Sometimes we are able to fill out venues of 60 to 100 people who are all hungry for investment knowledge,” Samson said.
“Eventually, we kept on pushing and then it grew to this. It covers kasi different ages, from senior high school to senior citizens who are willing and eager to learn about investments talaga,” he added.
Samson said they have been giving out financial literacy seminars in schools for free since 2014 and provide trainings online.
Meanwhile, First Metro Securities Brokerage Corporation president Gonzalo Ordoñez reminded that investment offers that are “too good to be true are probably not true.”
He said one of their goals in putting an investment hub in the city is to educate the people more and change their lives by spreading financial literacy.
“We have free seminars in schools but are not directly related to investments. Our revenues come from investments but our passion is to educate and change the life of the Dabawenyos,” Ordoñez said.
“We are here to make money and do our business, but what we realized is that we’re not here directly for the profits. We started a wide net, we started up in schools, we teach people like rather than going into scams, we teach people to save and then they have to invest properly,” he added.
First Metro Securities Brokerage Corporation is a stockbrokerage arm of Metrobank.