THE Department of Finance (DOF) on Monday, Aug. 23, 2021, said the number of unbanked national ID registrants onboarded by the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) to the formal banking system has grown to 4.47 million as of end-June 2021.
A report to Finance Secretary and LandBank Chairman Carlos Dominguez III showed a total of 4,468,249 new accounts among the 9,484,696 individuals who registered with the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) from 884 sites in 32 provinces.
As of June 30, 2021, 1,225,675 or 27 percent of the onboarded applicants have already received their LandBank agent banking cards (ABCs).
These cards are provided free of charge and with no initial deposit requirement to PhilSys applicants in areas where the LandBank has co-located with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in PhilSys registration sites.
LandBank said facilitating the opening of bank accounts for PhilSys registrants will help ensure the speedy and efficient delivery of future government assistance programs to unbanked beneficiaries.
LandBank records show that PhilSys registrants who were issued cards are already using these for various transactions.
As of June 30, 2021, a total of 4,338 Philsys registrants made 8,099 transactions over-the-counter (through LandBank branches), or through mobile banking apps, point of sale and online.
Majority of the transactions were conducted in the Visayas as well as in Central Luzon.
LandBank’s ABCs can be used by PhilSys ID holders to withdraw cash at ATMs and point-of-sale (POS) cash-out terminals, shop online and perform other cashless transactions, as well as receive any government subsidy digitally.
The card is also contactless-enabled, which means it can be used for “tap” payments, such as for the Automated Fare Collection System (AFCS) that the government plans to roll out for public utility vehicles (PUVs).
As for the bank’s other digital transformation initiatives, LandBank reported that from November 2018 up to end-June 2021, a total of 1,671,470 accounts were opened through the bank’s Digital Onboarding System (DOBS), which includes accounts opened for clients of the Overseas Filipino Bank (OFBank), a LandBank subsidiary that is the first digital-only bank in the country.
For the month of June 2021, accounts opened reached 68,863, higher than the 67,889 accounts opened in the previous month.
LandBank also said there was a sustained increase in the number of transactions using the LandBank Mobile Banking App from 31.97 million transactions last June 2020 to 47.03 million in June 2021. (PR)