By MADELAINE B. MIRAFLOR
Home Development Mutual Fund, commonly known as Pag-IBIG Fund, expects to surpass its 2019 performance this year in terms of collective savings from its members, loan disbursement, and the agency’s profitability.
Pag-IBIG Fund Chief Executive Officer Acmad Rizaldy Moti (Photo credit: https://www.pagibigfund.gov.ph)
“Our members can expect another banner year,” said Pag-IBIG Fund Chief Executive Officer Acmad Rizaldy Moti.
In terms of collective savings from its members, Moti said the agency forecasts a conservative 5 percent growth.
This was after the collective savings of Pag-IBIG Fund members breached the ₱40-billion mark for the first time, settling at a record high level of ₱53.83 billion in 2019.
“Over 2019, there was an increase of ₱10 billion. The target for 2020 is ₱50 billion and since we already did ₱50 billion last year, we are now revising our targets. From ₱50 billion, we will commit to increase it by 5 percent,” Moti said.
As for income, Moti said the Fund targets “another ₱1-billion increase for this year.”
Financially, Pag-IBIG showed better than expected performance in 2019 as its total assets amounted to ₱603.39 billion by end of 2019. The agency also posted a net income of ₱34.37 billion, the highest in its history. In 2018, Pag-IBIG Fund booked a net income of ₱33.17 billion.
The huge increase in Pag-IBIG Fund’s collective savings last year was largely due to the big spike in its Modified Pag-IBIG 2 (MP2) Savings collections, which posted growth of 169 percent to ₱12.01 billion from the ₱4.47 billion collected in 2018.
"The phenomenal increase in our savings collections is critical to Pag-IBIG Fund's growth because it is through the collective savings of our members that Pag-IBIG is able to extend more loans and benefits at affordable rates to our borrowers," Eduardo del Rosario, Secretary of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) and the Chairperson of Pag-IBIG Fund Board of Trustees said.
Moving forward, Moti said the agency will “revisit” the MP2 program to improve it and make it a much stronger fund.
The MP2 Savings Program is a voluntary savings program for members that provide higher dividends than the regular Pag-IBIG Savings Program. The program, according to Moti, helped the agency sustain its funds while maintaining lower savings rate for its existing members.
But with higher mandatory monthly contribution from its members starting next year, Pag-IBIG Fund is expecting to collect additional “P17 billion to P20 billion” in 2021.
In December last year, Pag-IBIG Fund's 11-member board of trustees approved higher savings rate for its members.
Starting next year, Pag-IBIG Fund members’ mandatory monthly savings will increase to P150 from the previous savings rate of P100. This will further increase to P200 by January 2023.