The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) plans to educate overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) about financial literacy and investor education.
The PSE said in a statement Friday it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) to improve the financial and debt management skills of OFWs.
The MOU covers the conduct of learning sessions for OFWs and their families as well as development of materials intended for migrant workers.
An online community will also be created to facilitate the communication with OFWs.
“Investor education is a core advocacy for the PSE that stems from our mission to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth. This project is aligned with the PSE’s core strategy to improve liquidity and increase market depth by boosting retail participation in the local capital market,” PSE president and chief executive Ramon Monzon said.
“PSE intends to complement DMW’s reintegration roadmap by educating OFWs and their families about personal finance and the fundamentals of investing in the stock market; and by equipping them with relevant information to protect themselves against investment scams,” Monzon said.
He also expressed optimism that the partnership with DMW will help grow the OFW investor count, which represented only 5.6 percent of the 1.68 million retail investor accounts as of 2022.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) forged ties with the DMW in November to work toward protecting OFWs from investment scams.
OFWs have been targeted by scammers into investing their hard-earned money into fraudulent investment schemes.
Under the agreement, the SEC seeks to improve the financial and debt management skills of OFWs by tapping into DMW’s resources to expand the reach of its financial literacy and investment scam awareness programs.