Many poorer Filipinos find it costly to open and maintain bank accounts despite significant improvement in Filipinos’ access to financial institutions during the pandemic, according to the World Bank.
The Washington-based multilateral lender’s Global Findex 2021 report and database released on Wednesday, said that 57 percent of unbanked adults in the Philippines “say that accounts are too expensive.”
“In the Philippines, 30 percent of adults (55 percent of savers) saved in only some other way, making it one of the economies with the highest share of adults doing so,” the World Bank said, referring to saving cash at home, and through assets like jewelry, livestock, real estate, as well as investment products as its estimates showed that in the Philippines, 51 percent of adults have financial accounts, 47 percent of women have accounts and 34 percent of poor adults have an account in 2021.
The World Bank said “57 percent of unbanked adults in the Philippines say that accounts are too expensive.”
The bank added that account ownership in the country “grew significantly over the past decade, but the income gap remained stagnant” while globally the COVID-19 pandemic spurred financial inclusion driving a large increase in digital payments.
“This expansion created new economic opportunities, narrowing the gender gap in account ownership, and building resilience at the household level to better manage financial shocks,” the World Bank said .
