Transfer of Postal Bank assets to Landbank now for Palace OK

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Finance (DOF) has submitted to President Duterte a draft executive order for the transfer of state-run Philippine Postal Savings Bank’s assets to the Land Bank of the Philippines, the first step toward establishing the Overseas Filipino Bank.

In an interview, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said there is a need for an executive order from the President to execute the transfer of Postal Bank from its current shareholders to Landbank.

Dominguez said the DOF was able to submit the draft EO early this month, ahead of the October target.

“We were expecting to submit that sometime in October, but we were able to submit it first week of September,” Dominguez said.

In an earlier interview, Landbank president Alex Buenaventura said the bank is proposing for the acquisition of Postal Bank at zero-value or at no cost, as the valuation of the latter was estimated at negative P680 million due to losses.

He said the acquisition would require approvals from authorities, including the governance commission for government-owned and controlled corporations, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the President.

Afterwards, Buenaventura said Postal Bank would be renamed as Overseas Filipino Bank and transformed as the remittance marketing arm of the Landbank.

Dominguez, for his part, said the central bank has approved in principle the acquisition deal.

He said the new Overseas Filipino Bank would offer products and services on remittance, loans, savings, investment and insurance.

“We just had a discussion with Secretary (Silvestre) Bello III and we discussed about the remittance program which is certainly going to be one of the features. Also the loan program for Filipinos abroad who are returning and would like to start businesses or build their homes,” Dominguez said.

He said the bank also aims to mobilize the money of overseas Filipinos abroad and provide them investment opportunities.

“We also want to use this Overseas Filipino Bank to mobilize the savings into investing in the capital markets, because many overseas Filipinos are not familiar with investing in the different products that are available,” he said.

The finance chief said this could be a vehicle for the possible issuance of overseas Filipino bonds in the future.

A bank dedicated to the needs of the OFWs is one of the promises of President Duterte during his campaign.