Carlos Ani is an international microfinance and SME Banking consultant, based in the Philippines. He runs a website called http://www.carlosani.com and a family website called http://www.anifamily.net. Carlos serves as Chairman of the Board of SEEDFINANCE Corporation (website: http://www.seedfinance.net ), which is a commercial financing company in the Philippines that provide loans, training and technical assistance to rural banks, microfinance NGOs and cooperatives in the Philippines. Through its partner network, SEEDFINANCE is able to serve a total of 1,200,000 low-income and poor people in the Philippines.
MANILA, Philippines - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is reorganizing the Payments and Settlements Office (PSO), the overseer of the Philippine Payment and Settlements System (PhilPass), in anticipation of the huge volume of bank transactions using its services.
A report from the BSP said that PSO will be reorganized in anticipation of the volume growing in the next few years and as more and more banks are tapping this payments and settlement services unit for their transactions.
The restructuring is expected to improve its efficiency and reliability as the financial sector’s wholesale payments system.
The changes are mostly primarily structural changes such as staffing and the reshuffling of departments as well the removal of non-functioning units within the PSO.
The reorganization will also involve the addition of settlement monitoring desks to address the increasing traffic of PhilPaSS transactions and the regular back-up testing of the site for uninterrupted services.
The BSP is also developing new payments products and systems as they cope with the changing requirements of PhilPaSS clients.
“PhilPass is becoming more crucial to the (financial) sector,” said BSP Deputy Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. “In the overall scheme of things, the role of PhilPass is that it is the collector of the BSP, the government and all of the banks.”
Trillions of pesos pass through the system every year. In 2011, PhilPaSS transactions increased 23 percent to 1.2 million valued at P312.6 trillion. This amount is 51.3 percent higher than end 2010’s P206.6 trillion.
Espenilla said monitoring and regulating PhilPass transactions is one of the most important duties of the BSP.
“The central bank is the depository bank of the government … and all the banks use the BSP as a depository so the value of PhilPass is important. For example, if somebody wants to transfer money from the government to a bank, or a bank to another bank, the most efficient way to do that is through PhilPass,” stressed Espenilla.
At present, the PSO through PhilPaSS maintains and controls the demand deposit accounts of the local banks and monitors the receipt and settlement of interbank fund transfer instructions involving interbank lending/borrowing, automated teller machine network funds, purchase and sale of government securities through the Bureau of the Treasury’s own real-time system, among others.
The PSO also monitors and implements policies to manage risks to PhilPaSS such as banks’ intraday liquidity facility and overnight clearing line.
The BSP has been encouraging more financial entities under its supervision to participate in PhilPaSS. It wants to expand the usability of PhilPaSS as a payments facility that is faster and efficient to benefit all banking institutions.
From only 237 daily average transactions worth P100 billion in 2002 when PhilPaSS was opened, the system now settles an average of 4,50
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CARLOS ANI - International Microfinance Consultant - SEEDFINANCE Corporation Chairman Mailing address: PO Box 90 UPLB Los Banos Laguna, Philippines 4031 Emails: carlosani@gmail.com , carlosani@seedfinance.net Landline Phone: +63495010127 (PLDT) Cellphone Numbers: +639152919580 (Globe) and +639328590859 (Sun) Websites: CARLOSANI.COM - http://www.carlosani.com DEVJOBS - http://www.devjobsmail.com PHILDEVFINANCE - http://phildevfinance.posterous.com My News Clippings - http://www.myclipps.posterous.com Family website - http://www.anifamily.net SEEDFINANCE Corporation - http://www.seedfinance.net Skype name: carlosaniph ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** This message is intended only for the named recipient and may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any misdirected transmission. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by telephone at +63495010127 and immediately delete this message from your system. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose, distribute or copy any part of this message. Thank you. ***********
MANILA, Philippines - State-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) continued to adopt measures to mitigate risks of lending to small farmers and fisherfolk as loan disbursements to this sector reached P285.5 billion from 1991 to 2010.
Landbank president and CEO Gilda E. Pico said the bank has strengthened the implementation of mitigating controls for lending to small farmers and fisherfolk who in most cases do not have hard collaterals to offer.
One measure is the enhancement of the Bank’s Cooperative Accreditation Criteria and the Countryside Financial Institution (CFI) Risk Assets Acceptance Criteria which are used in assessing the cooperative and CFI’s eligibility to access the Bank’s credit facilities and other services. The asset acceptance criteria serve as Landbank’s ultimate measure of risk acceptance for all its credit programs.
Landbank has also adopted the use of the Enterprise-based Approach in extending credit and other services. And as part of its credit enhancements, Landbank uses the PCIC Insurance Coverage, the Guarantee coverage of the Agricultural Guarantee Fund Pool (AGFP), the Credit Surety Fund (CSF) and other guarantee funds.
Furthermore, Landbank encourages purchase order or confirmed market tie-up between producers or cooperatives and reliable buyers or processors through the signing of the Production Technical and Marketing Agreements (PTMA). This tie-up is done through the signing of Production Technical and Marketing Agreement (PTMA) of both parties specifying the roles of the partners and embodies the collection mechanism of cooperative’s loans extended by Landbank.
In 2010, Landbank reported written-off accounts amounting to P471.19 million for loan releases to cooperatives and CFIs.
Pico explained that the said written-off accounts were not incurred in 2010 alone but over a period of 19 years, representing 0.17 percent of the Bank’s total loan disbursements during the period.
“We undertake several remedial measures before proposing loans for write off. We only propose a loan for write off when all efforts have been exerted to collect or recover payment from the borrower but to no avail,” Pico said.
The bank president underscored that Landbank remains committed to its support to the farmers and fisherfolk sector, while striking a balance in strengthening its viability as a premier government financial institution.
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CARLOS ANI - International Microfinance Consultant - SEEDFINANCE Corporation Chairman Mailing address: PO Box 90 UPLB Los Banos Laguna, Philippines 4031 Emails: carlosani@gmail.com , carlosani@seedfinance.net Landline Phone: +63495010127 (PLDT) Cellphone Numbers: +639152919580 (Globe) and +639328590859 (Sun) Websites: CARLOSANI.COM - http://www.carlosani.com DEVJOBS - http://www.devjobsmail.com PHILDEVFINANCE - http://phildevfinance.posterous.com My News Clippings - http://www.myclipps.posterous.com Family website - http://www.anifamily.net SEEDFINANCE Corporation - http://www.seedfinance.net Skype name: carlosaniph ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** This message is intended only for the named recipient and may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any misdirected transmission. If you received this message in error, please notify us immediately by telephone at +63495010127 and immediately delete this message from your system. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose, distribute or copy any part of this message. Thank you. ***********