TUCP bats for lower remittance charges

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) gave yesterday its full support for moves to lower money transfer charges.

TUCP, the country’s largest labor group said, the state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) should compete with private banks by lowering the remittance charges.

“Both the LBP and DBP should offer cheaper transfer charges, and endeavor to capture a bigger slice of the remittance market. We find it highly anomalous that, right now, four local private banks control about half of the annual inflow of remittances,” TUCP spokesman Alex Aguilar said.

Aguilar issued the statement as TUCP projected further depreciation of the dollar, which could adversely affect the purchasing power of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

The peso will likely soar to fresh multi-year highs versus the US dollar once the Federal Reserve — the American central bank — slashes its key rate by either one-fourth or one-half percentage point, TUCP said.

The families here of migrant workers are having difficulty coping with their significantly reduced purchasing power due to the peso’s steady rise against the US currency.

TUCP has been urging OFWs to dump their dollars and hoard their savings in pesos, with the greenback likely to fall to as low as P40 by year’s end. – Mayen Jaymalin, Philippine Star