Money sent home by overseas Filipinos reached $2.668 billion in January, up by 2.5 percent compared to same period in 2021 of $2.603 billion, based on Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data.
These cash remittances which are transacted through the banking system, expanded because of the increase in land-based and sea-based workers’ remittances, which grew by 2.9 percent year-on-year to $2.103 billion and by 1.2 percent to $565 million, respectively.
According to the BSP, the “growth in cash remittances from the United States (US), Japan, and Singapore contributed largely to the increase in remittances in January 2022. Meanwhile, in terms of country sources, the US registered the highest share of overall remittances at 41.2 percent.”
Cash remittances from Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Taiwan, Qatar, and Malaysia also contributed to the January increase in fund transfers.
“The combined remittances from these top ten countries accounted for 79.6 percent of total cash remittances during the period,” said the BSP.
As for personal remittances, used to be known as the “padala” system, this also increased by 2.5 percent to $2.966 billion from $2.895 billion same time in 2021.
The BSP said the increase in personal remittances in January came from the 2.9 percent growth in the remittances sent home by land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more, which amounted to $2.283 billion from $2.219 billion in 2021.
Personal remittances from sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year, also increased by 1.2 percent to $617 million from $609 million.
Last year, remittances via the banking networks rose by 5.1 percent year-on-year to $31.418 billion but was off the expected six percent growth for the year.
The cash remittances was originally projected to reach five percent growth in 2021 but the BSP revised the projection in September last year and raised it to six percent as they predicted a higher-than-anticipated recovery after contracting 0.8 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic.
For this year, the BSP expects cash remittances to grow by four percent.
There are more than 10 million overseas Filipinos. Since 2020, an estimated 620,000 to 630,000 migrant workers and professionals came home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.