MANILA, Philippines—The number of accounts opened online by Land Bank of the Philippines’ (Landbank) clients already breached the one-million mark as quarantine restrictions for the COVID-19 pandemic forced more Filipinos to shift to digital banking.
In a statement on Monday (Oct. 19), the state-run Landbank said its digital onboarding system (DOBS) recorded 1,039,926 accounts to date. Nearly half, or 492,156 accounts, were opened between last January and September.
Introduced in 2019, Landbank’s DOBS web application not only simplified the enrolment process for both individual and institutional accounts but also slashed account opening time to just 10 minutes from an average of 30-45 minutes in the past.
“This milestone is a welcome development for the bank,” said Cecilia C. Borromeo, Landbank president and chief executive.
“It proves that Filipinos are responsive to the improvements and innovations that we implement, designed to provide them additional channels for their banking needs, as well as a more convenient banking experience in this digital age,” Borromeo said.
“This is only the start for the bank’s digitization agenda as we also look forward to streamlining other bank processes using new technologies such as loan application, among others,” Borromeo added.
The newly opened accounts through Landbank’s DOBS included 11,972 accounts in the all-digital Overseas Filipino Bank (OFBank).
Amid the pandemic, OFBank already facilitated over P100 million in transactions between Filipinos living or working abroad and their loved ones here in the Philippines.
Since the digital-only and branchless OFBank launched last June, its mobile app, which allowed opening accounts online, the lender has been stepping up marketing especially for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), OFBank president and chief executive Leila C. Martin told the Inquirer last Oct. 10.
A fully owned subsidiary of Landbank, OFBank had targeted an average of 2,000 new accounts opened per banking day when the prolonged COVID-19 quarantine got lifted.
“The increase in the number of users and e-banking transactions are encouraging — more than P100 million in retail funds has been coursed through OFBank so far,” Martin said.
“We’re seeing our kababayans increasingly utilizing the fund transfer facility which OFBank is providing free of charge — from an OFBank to another OFBank/Landbank account,” Martin added.
Martin said the free fund transfer service will be available until yearend, which would also spare account holders from paying P25 when sending funds to another bank account.
“Likewise, we’re seeing OFWs maintaining their own savings accounts as the average daily balance (ADB) being posted are increasing monthly,” Martin said.
“We will soon launch more value-added services via our mobile banking applications,” Martin said.
She said OFBank was hopeful more OFWs would open accounts to “generate more volume by yearend” with the “full support of our parent-bank” and consulates, Philippine Trade and Investment Center offices and OFW groups.
In 2017, Landbank acquired Philippine Postal Savings Bank (Postbank) and converted it into OFBank, a savings bank catering to OFWs, a campaign promise of President Rodrigo Duterte.