MANILA—The government is aiming at giving access to bank accounts and formal banking services to the Philippines’ 26 million households by the end of 2021, the country’s chief economist said on Thursday (June 17).
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua told the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s (Apec) structural reform ministerial meeting that the COVID-19 pandemic “revealed several institutional weaknesses, including the difficulty in identifying beneficiaries for social protection programs and the lack of bank accounts for the efficient distribution of subsidies” in the Philippines.
The national and local governments gave away cash dole outs at the height of the …
Keep on reading: Neda chief: All 26M PH households could have bank accounts by end of 2021