Lawmakers urge banks to cut remittance fees

MANILA, Philippines — Two congressmen yesterday urged the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and banks to reduce remittance fees being collected from millions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) for the billions of dollars they send to their families here.

Reps. John Bertiz III of party-list group ACTS-OFW and Henry Ong of Leyte described such fees as “excessive.”

Bertiz said OFWs would pay banks $3.1 billion (P161 billion at P52 to the dollar) for the $29.3 billion they are expected to send home this year.

He said a World Bank study showed that the global average cost of a personal cash transfer through bank channels was 10.57 percent in the first quarter of 2018.

This means that an OFW pays an average of $10.57 for every $100 he remits to his family back home, Bertiz said.

“There’s really no reason why banks cannot reduce fees, considering that non-bank money transfer agents are already charging as low as three percent,” he said.

He said Filipinos still prefer to send money home through banks largely because of the security the banking system provides.

Ong, who is vice chairman of the House committee on banks, said the BSP and bankers should work on reducing remittance charges to three percent.

“The three-percent target is among the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. To reduce costs, the Bangko Sentral, banks and financial intermediaries must work in concert to streamline the cost structure, remove cost barriers and eliminate red tape,” he said.