Balanga City, Bataan—Bataan 2nd district Rep. Joet Garcia is pushing for the adoption of electronic money transfer in the the country.
“The Philippines has one of the highest percentages of people in Southeast Asia who do not have bank accounts and who transact in cash”, he pointed out in the bill he lodged in Congress.
“That while this could be attributed to the condition that only 37% of the 1,634 cities and municipalities across the country do not have banking offices, it is equally astonishing that 81.3% of households in Metro Manila do not own bank accounts”, he also said citing statistics from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
“Among Filipino consumers today, only 3% are carded; 25% have bank accounts but are underserved; and 75% (equivalent to 86% of households) are fully unbanked. Without a banking account, Filipino consumers are mostly dealing with cash in their financial transactions”, Garcia pointed out.
“That most Filipinos are not carded, underserved, or unbanked is conveniently blamed for the sluggish adoption of cashless technology in the country“.
“This is exacerbated by the fact that access to the internet remains to be among the slowest and more expensive in the region while Filipinos still entertain lack of trust over digital systems”, he added.