OF Bank to offer online dollar account facility

The country's first digital bank, the Overseas Filipino Bank by the Landbank of the Philippines, will soon launch an online dollar account opening facility to allow Filipinos abroad to save and invest their dollars, OF Bank President Leila Martin said in a report by ABS-CBN.

Martin said they are eyeing the launch before the end of the year. Account opening via the digital bank will be purely online, she added.

"We will soon be launching an online dollar account opening facility. OF Bank will be launching this on or before the end of the year. This will also facilitate all our kababayan’s participation in the next retail dollar bond offering of the Philippine government which will happen very soon, targeted by January 2023," she said. 

"Even though you’re not in the country, you can have a dollar-denominated deposit account, open it online in 5 minutes or less," she added.

OF Bank said there was a 114 percent growth in account opening while the total volume of transactions reached almost 10 billion in 2022, which includes inflow of remittances, deposits as well as Instapay, Martin said.

She said the digital bank is expecting "exponential growth" in remittances before the end of the year due to the holiday season.

The OF Bank is also working with Department of Migrant Workers Secretary Susan "Toots" Ople to find ways to better serve Filipinos abroad, especially overseas Filipino workers. 

OF Bank is one of the 6 digital banks that were licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.