The Philippines Enhances National Strategy for Financial Inclusion

Source: Open Gov

The Philippines’ central bank, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), has refreshed its six-year-old National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (NSFI) to make it more current and to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and greater digitalization of financial services. The BSP will launch an enhanced version of the current NSFI in January 2022. The Financial Inclusion Steering Committee (FISC), an interagency committee in charge of the NSFI and chaired by the BSP, agreed to alter and update the NSFI on 9 November.

The National Survey on Financial Institutions (NSFI) was originally introduced in July 2015 and the most recent national survey on FI as an official report was in 2019. The BSP publishes quarterly FI data on its website, the most recent of which was in the fourth quarter of 2020. The objective of the NSFI is to promote and develop public-private collaboration and financial inclusion policies and programs. The Financial Institutions Surveillance Commission (FISC) developed an inclusive financial system in 2015.