BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said the financial inclusion efforts of the government will be a vital tool to alleviate poverty in the country.
In a speech delivered in a workshop on financial inclusion at Bangko Sentral July 5, Tetangco said poverty alleviation was a national priority of the government.
“While the incidence of poverty in our country has been on the decline, the Philippine Statistics Authority estimates that poverty incidence among Filipinos in the first semester of 2015 was at 26.3 percent. That means more than 26 million Filipinos still live in poverty,” he said.
“In this connection, the Bangko Sentral continues to address persistent barriers to financial inclusion. These come in the form of human barriers such as lack of financial literacy, age and gender issues,” he said.
Bangko Sentral last year took steps to bring together 12 other government agencies along with representatives from the private sector, multilateral institutions and the NGO community to prepare a harmonized plan under the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion, or NSFI.