Banks no longer need new branches

Since going digital has proven its effectiveness in bringing in more people to be part of the financial system, opening up new bank branches is now less critical compared to before the pandemic.

Investing heavily on putting up more physical branches as “not the way to go” nowadays since “things are rapidly moving towards digitalization,” Ramon Duarte, Union Bank of the Philippines (Unionbank) Transaction Banking and Platform Development head, said.

Duarte said banks continue to open up more branches to reach more people but in reality, there are still a lot of people who remain unbanked.
“The opportunity is to reach them through digital…That’s the way you are going to bring in more Filipinos and the small businesses into the formal banking sector,” he said in a virtual briefing.

Banks have been strongly supporting the government’s bid toward digitalization of process and payments.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) earlier reported a significant jump in digital payments transactions after the government placed Luzon, the country’s largest island group and accounts for about 75 percent of the economy’s annual output, under an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) from mid- March to end-April.