The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas noted a significant increase in the number of basic deposit accounts opened in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year.
It said in a statement Friday basic deposit accounts openings posted a 170-percent increase to 21.9 million from 8.1 million a year ago.
“Part of the growth was driven by the conversion to BDA of transaction accounts opened under the Philippine Identification System [PhilSys] co-location strategy in the fourth quarter of 2022, which resulted in 7.5 million additional BDAs,” the BSP said.
An initiative of the Philippine Statistics Authority and the Land Bank of the Philippines, the co-location strategy aims to onboard unbanked PhilSys registrants into the formal financial system after their biometrics capture at registration centers.
The total value of BDA deposits in the first quarter reached P27 billion, or 432 percent higher than P5.1 billion last year.
Basic deposit accounts, which was introduced by the BSP in 2018, aim to meet the needs of the unbanked and low-income sector for affordable and easy-to-open bank accounts. It has a low opening deposit requirement of P100 or less, simple identification requirements, no maintaining balance requirement and no dormancy charges.
Five more banks started offering BDAs in the first quarter this year and generated 4.3 million newly opened accounts.
The BSP said through the BDA, more Filipinos could open a savings account that is interest-earning in selected banks and is insured by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.