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The remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) at One Network Banks (ONB) is the bank’s major product of services in Mindanao with total volume amounting to P551.945 million for the first nine months this year.

ONB president Alex Buenaventura told reporters at the Davao Business Forum at SM’s MediSpa on Tuesday that for the third quarter alone of this year it posted a 52 percent surge or P100.635 million in remittances compared to the same period in 2008 with only P66.194 million.

He said they wanted to serve as many remittance channels although they started this service in 2000 with Western Union but they did not continue with the agreement considering that Western Union wanted exclusivity.

He said even if they lack one of their big clients but in their 75 branches around Mindanao they are servicing 11 remittance channels among them Uniteller, RCBC Tele, Banco de Oro, Moneygram, Philippine National Bank, Epcil Xoom, iRemit, Development Bank of the Philippines, Asian United Bank, SBTC and G-Cash.

In the pipeline he said are four more remittance channels namely Bank of the Philippines, LBC Bank, Metrobank, Perihillon of Philippine Business Bank while their agreement with Unionbank is already being finalized.

He said average remittance amount per transaction is $200 and bank fee on the average is P75 per transaction regardless of the amount. The remittance companies charge ranges between $10 to $20.

“Although we consider this as one of our support still we could match the remittances channeled to non-bank shops like pawnshops and moneygram,” he said.

He said our volume is nothing compared to those done in non-bank shops as their would run ten times over their volume.

He said many of the OFWs beneficiaries prefer the non-bank shops because they are not required to open an account.

But he said the prospects of their remittances services is good because these OFWs became their clients and 90 percent of the time they come back which brings a steady growth of this kind of bank services.

The remittances also turn into deposits and some of them become their borrower where they maintain a cash flow for them to qualify for loan availment.

He said there are even propositions from remittance center abroad if ONB can extend support to the centers to pay housing loans for their clients even as he said that they are still studying this and they need to check on the employment contract otherwise payments will be cut when they are out of job.

Buenaventura said with other institutions also considering remittance of services for OFWs like the Philippine Postal Corporation he said they are willing to be part of the partnership.

“We want to be payout agents of all remittance companies and we would like to accommodate more,” he said.

He said they will also consider Pay Pal as another institution to tie up with in terms of remittance services. (PIA)

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