Financial Inclusion

BSP, French Development Agency Sign PHP 41.3 Million Grant for Financial Inclusion Push

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) signed a grant facility agreement of 700,000 Euros (around PHP 41.3 million) to support the Philippines’s financial inclusion drive, especially among rural and women-owned enterprises.

This will fund a technical assistance (TA) programme to support BSP’s efforts to leverage technology for the effective regulation of digital finance as well as promote digital financial literacy of rural and women-owned businesses.

Additionally, it will also contribute to public policy dialogue on agricultural insurance.

This grant complements the Inclusive Finance Development Programme (IFDP), a programme which AFD has been supporting since 2019 alongside the Asian Development Bank (ADB), through a 100 million Euro sovereign policy-based loan to the Philippines.

BSP said that as the first central bank in the world to establish a dedicated financial inclusion office in 2007, it has continuously nurtured an enabling regulatory environment and fostered multi-stakeholder cooperation for financial inclusion.

Benjamin Diokno

“This endeavor demonstrates our organisations’ shared commitment to advance financial inclusion in the country through responsible digital innovations.

The BSP looks forward to a fruitful collaboration with AFD as we implement the program in the next five years.”

said Benjamin E. Diokno, Governor of BSP.

For his part, AFD’s Country Director Laurent Klein welcomed the conclusion of this agreement with the BSP as the main supervisor and regulator of the Philippine financial system.

Laurent Klein

“In line with our organisation’s strategic objectives to support financial systems and fight social and economic inequalities, the project that will result from this cooperation will contribute to the country’s efforts to promote access to quality financial services for all, including the most vulnerable part of the population,”

said Laurent Klein, Country Director in the Philippines for AFD.