State-run Land Bank of the Philippines is firming up its acquisition of Philippine Postal Savings Bank (Postbank) alongside plans to pilot its first overseas Filipino worker (OFW) center in Dubai.
LandBank president Alex V. Buenaventura told the Inquirer last week that due diligence on and valuation of Postbank was ongoing and would be completed next month for submission to the LandBank board.
Buenaventura said LandBank’s acquisition of Postbank would be completed by the end of September.
LandBank will acquire 100 percent of Postbank, including the 57-percent equity of Philippine Postal Corp. and the government’s share, he said, adding that there was no immediate need for capital infusion into Postbank.
LandBank is acquiring Postbank in line with President Duterte’s promise to have a bank serving OFWs.
“The strategy adopted by (Finance) Secretary (Carlos G.) Dominguez (III) to comply with that commitment is for LandBank to acquire Postbank and transform it into a fully owned subsidiary. It will not be merged with LandBank,” Buenaventura explained.
He said Postbank would be renamed either “OFW Bank” or “Bank for OFWs” and would serve OFWs’ banking needs.
LandBank will set up ‘OFW centers’ and the first will be in Dubai, he said.
Buenaventura said the OFW centers would not be bank branches but service centers that would serve the banking requirement of OFWs.
“OFW Bank will run the OFW centers, that’s the plan,” he added.
The pilot OFW center will be located within the Philippine consulate in Dubai.
Buenaventura said that while LandBank had yet to determine how many OFW centers would be established within the year, it would put up such offices in areas where OFWs were concentrated, including other parts of the United Arab Emirates, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United States and Italy, among other European countries.