Latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed a 170 percent increase in the number of Basic Deposit Accounts (BDAs) to 21.9 million in the first quarter this year from 8.1 million in the first quarter in 2022.
At the same time, the total value of BDA deposits reached PHP27 billion, a 432 percent rise from PHP5.1 billion in the first quarter in 2022.
Part of the growth was driven by the conversion to BDA of transaction accounts opened under the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) co-location strategy in the fourth quarter in 2022, which resulted in 7.5 million additional BDAs.
An initiative of the Philippine Statistics Authority and the Land Bank of the Philippines, the co-location strategy aims to onboard unbanked PhilSys registrants into the formal financial system after their biometrics capture at registration centers.
In addition, five more banks started offering BDAs in the first quarter this year and generated 4.3 million newly opened accounts. See the complete list of banks offering BDAs here: https://bit.ly/BDAs2022.
Introduced by the BSP in 2018, the BDA aims to meet the needs of the unbanked and low-income sector for affordable and easy-to-open bank accounts. It has a low opening deposit requirement of PHP100 or less, simple identification requirements, no maintaining balance requirement and no dormancy charges.
Through the BDA, more Filipinos can open a savings account that is interest-earning in selected banks and is insured by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation. For information on how to open a BDA, visit https://bit.ly/How2OpenBDA.
