Fewer overseas Filipino households saved, invested money in Q4 — Bangko Sentral survey

December 17, 2012 11:13am

Only 29.5 percent of Filipino households placed remittances by relatives abroad into savings during the fourth quarter of the year, or less than the 42.6 percent a year earlier, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Consumer Expectation Survey.

 

Still, Bangko Sentral reported it was better than 36.8 percent recorded in the third quarter 2012 survey. 

 

The survey results, called Consumer confidence Index, also noted only 3.1 percent of the respondents placed their money in investments, down from 6.4 percent a year earlier and from 4.9 percent in the third quarter of the year.

 

Conducted from Oct. 1 to 12, the survey covered 478 households nationwide.

 

Bangko Sentral said it is urging overseas Filipino households to save and invest as ways to secure their financial future, especially the future of their dependents,  in the face of certainty that their contracts will one day expire. 

 

As such, investing in or putting up a business of their own can create jobs and contribute to economic growth, the central bank noted, saying it continues to hold financial literacy seminars for overseas Filipinos and their families in the Philippines and abroad. — VS, GMA News