State-run Land Bank of the Philippines has ramped-up efforts to bring more unbanked Filipinos into the formal banking system to support the national government’s financial inclusion program.

The country’s second largest bank in terms of assets reported that it has onboarded more than 3.7 million unbanked National ID registrants for transaction accounts at end-May, of whom over 1.07 million have already received their Agent Banking Cards (ABCs). 

The cards, which were provided free-of-charge and with no initial deposit requirement, form part of the Land Bank’s partnership with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to co-locate in the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) rollout nationwide.

The Land Bank ABCs are given to unbanked PhilSys registrants through its account opening booths at designated co-location areas at 850 centers in 32 pilot provinces nationwide. 

Together with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Land Bank has also distributed a total of 5.6 million Cash Cards to beneficiaries of social protection program nationwide as of May 31, 2021. 

Of the total, 4.4 million Land Bank Cash Cards were delivered to DSWD’s Conditional Cash Transfer Program beneficiaries, while remaining 1.2 million were distributed to Unconditional Cash Transfer Program beneficiaries.

To reach more unbanked and underserved areas, the lender is also expanding its Agent Banking Program by partnering with more cooperatives, rural banks, local government units, and micro, small and medium enterprises, among others, to help provide basic banking services. 

Since the program’s full implementation in March 2020, Land Bank has certified 111 Full-Suite Agent Banking Partners (ABPs) operating in 48 unbanked municipalities and 159 underserved municipalities or those without a Land Bank branch.

Moreover, Land Bank has partnered with a total of 645 point of sale cash-out only ABPs as of end-May 2021, utilizing 959 terminals deployed in 130 unbanked municipalities and 829 underserved municipalities or those without a LANDBANK branch.

In addition, the state-run bank launched in May the Digital On-Boarding System Mobile (DOBS) which facilitates online savings account opening anytime, anywhere, in as fast as 10 to 15 minutes.

Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed that a basic indicator of financial inclusion is ownership of an account held in banks, e-money wallets, and microfinance institutions used to save, send or receive remittance, as well as for income, benefits, and bills payment.  In its 2019 financial inclusion survey, the central bank said only 20.9 million Filipinos or 23 percent of the population own an account.