To ensure the prompt delivery of future government financial assistance programs, Senator Win Gatchalian has broached the idea of having each Filipino owning one bank account.
“Now we already have the national ID. I want to file a bill related to the national ID, which I will call “One Filipino, One Bank Account,” Gatchalian said.
He said it should be mandatory for the government to give everybody in the country a bank account. It is important we use technology.
During this pandemic, he said, the government should just remit the financial help to the bank account.
“Even the people dispensing the cash might get infected with COVID-19. Who will then dispense the money?” Gatchalian said.
The Vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies says owning a bank account should be considered a basic requirement among Filipinos regardless of the individual’s socio-economic class.
And with over 74 million Filipinos already using smartphones as of 2019, Gatchalian said, contactless and cashless payments could be made possible through the use of their mobile phone units as digital wallets.
Through the use of software applications installed in smartphones, payments could be made through scanning or card readers.
A financial inclusion survey conducted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in 2019 showed that 51.2 million Filipino adults remained unbanked or 71 percent of the total adult population. The lack of enough money was the top reason for not having a bank account followed by the perceived lack of need for an account (27 percent) and the lack of documentary requirements (26 percent).
The same survey showed that access to technology had increased the awareness of online payments with 38 percent of adults reported owning a smartphone while 42 percent used the internet at least once a month.
Of the 42 percent, 86 percent of them connected to the internet via their mobile data. The BSP said such access to technology had given way to awareness of online payment methods.
The latest records from the Philippine Statistics Authority, meanwhile, showed that 82 percent of the 10.5 million initial registrants to the Philippine Identification System, or the national ID system, indicated they did not have bank accounts.
The PSA has set its target registrations to 70 million this year.