The philippines has to many banks ranging from rural bank, commercial banks, thrift bank and universal banks we so many branches dominated by the universal banks were ever you go you ll find banks every were even inside a village but with so many bank present in every corner both the small bank and the big bank this has not solve the unbanked segment of our society.
In the first ever financial consumer survey of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas they found out the 8 out of 10 filipinos does not own a savings account in any bank or 78.5% of our population are still unbanked this is very high considering that we have over a thousand banks in the country. We also have one of the highest unbanked in asia or even in the world. Bank tends to be aggresive in expanding and reaching out to the public but it has failed to address or minimize the unbanked segments of our society. With so many banks around the corner you might think that the recent survey was all lies but then again its true that we have a huge unbanked segment of our population with that there is still room to tap the untapped segments of our society. There a lot of factors why most of us have no bank accounts most common is that some people have nothing to put on in a bank. Then theres the huge amount of opening and maintaining balance. While there are banks who lowered there initial and maintaining balance to entice public to open a savings account this has not be implemented by majority of the banks in our country.3rd factor is the charges and fees impose by the bank when its depositors fall below fhe daily average balance in a month. With high fees why should save if you dont have the capacity to maitain one. 4th is to many recquirement were in when you open an account you have to present goverment issued ids. There are two types of id primary and secondary.
If you use primary ids like passport and sss you can open an account by presenting 2 primary ids but if you tend to use secondary ids you need to present 4 secondary ids like voters id,postal id,nbi clearance and so on. Two primary ids is equivalent to one primary ids. There are banks who are recquiring to have a landline,TIN number and utility bill under your name. If the bill is not under your name you have to get a barangay clearance. If you have no landline or even TIN they wont allow you to open an account. I have experience that with some banks. As you can see securing ids entails cost how can you open an account without spending much for ids whats left on your money may not be enough. Then when you have the ids needed you wont be able to open again why you dont have a landline or even a TIN number. If your successful in opening an account using your secondary ids your allowed to depost cash only no check deposit.
If i recall before the BSP has instructed banks to loosen up on there recquirements on opening a savings account but still youll encounter banks who are strict.
There are moves by congress to stop charging fees by the banks but to no avail it didnt materialize but resisted the calls stating it might affect there operations just like in the credit card segment high rates. Some lawmaker propose to have savings account with no maitaining balance while some banks did this there are two banks who have this type majority of the banks has no product like this. The first bank is a universal bank for only 100php you can have this account 100php goes for the atm the only problem is that every time you withdraw they impose charge of 5php regardless if its on there own atm machine while over the counter is around 100php. The 2nd bank is a thrift bank the former manila bank same procedure pay 100php for atm youll get it instantly the atm whats good to this bank they dont charge any fees when your withdrawing with there own atms but whats bad to this bank they have limited braches but they tend to expand aggresively.
