Sterling Bank rolls out deposit product for OFWs

Filipino domestic helpers line up to send money at a remittance center in the central district of Hong Kong in this 2008 file photo. AFP/TED ALJIBE

MANILA, Philippines—Thrift bank Sterling Bank of Asia seeks to promote the habit of saving among overseas Filipinos with the rollout of a new deposit product that waives the initial deposit and minimum maintaining balance requirements for this sector.

“We want to help OFWs secure their future. Our Bayani OFW Savings (BOS) Account makes it simple and affordable for them to save a portion of their remittance for future needs,” Lamberto Villena, president and CEO of the Sterling Bank of Asia, said in a press statement on Tuesday.

Although the BOS account would require no initial deposit or maintaining balance, it must have at least one foreign exchange remittance transaction on or before the first anniversary of the account’s opening, the bank said.

A deposit of at least P2,000 entitles the account to interest earnings.

The bank said the BOS account would also come with a Bayani OFW Savings Visa debit card that would allow overseas Filipinos to access their funds anywhere in the world. They will likewise have an option to enroll in Sterling Bank Online for free to allow them to monitor their funds any time.

The Bayani OFW Savings Visa debit card has an EMV chip that offers better protection from fraud than magnetic stripe cards and is the global standard for chip-based credit and debit transactions.

This developed as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas noted a decline in savings among overseas Filipinos families in its Consumer Expectations Survey for the third quarter of 2013. Based on the survey, the percentage of overseas Filipino-assisted households that saved part of the remittances decreased to 34.3 percent in the third quarter from 39.4 percent in the second quarter of the year.