RCBC joins financial literacy drive

CEBU, Philippines — The Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) is joining the pack of financial literacy advocates to teach Filipino children on effective financial management.

The bank is now talking with officials of the Department of Education (DepEd) to come up with possible agreement on encouraging children to save and teach them financial literacy, said RCBC president Eugene S. Acevedo in his recent visit to Cebu.

RCBC is capitalizing on the country’s thick young population who will dominate the market-base of financial transactions in the short term.

The school children, he said will soon arrive in their adulthood and if they are able to earn money of their own, they should be ready and well equipped in managing their finances.RCBC joins the active stance of other financial institutions like insurance firms, among others in their strong stance to educate the young kids in sound financial management culture, as the Philippines is still one of the few countries in the world, which has low savings rate.

Acevedo also mentioned the active move of the bank to partner with financial technology (FinTech) companies to provide products and services that are friendly to the digital-savvy young market.

He said the bank is betting on the country’s young population with median age of 23-24 years old.

With the current customer-base of over two million, combined with its subsidiary companies, RCBC hopes to increase its customer count faster with its much active stance in reaching out the market, including the micro-mall businesses, and the larger unbanked population in the Philippines.

The Yuchengco-led bank also announced recently its move to tap sari-sari stores to accept basic banking transactions soon.