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7 PASAY CITY
Banking On Themselves
Bayanihan Banking Program
THE bayanihan tradition—self-help, cooperation, sharing—that today
still characterizes many small Filipino communities has always proven
to foster self-reliance. Even in the case of banking. Funds could come
from small savings and then mobilized and loaned out to the savers
themselves to finance small enterprises. For this reason, repayment
rate can be expected to be high.
The beauty of any bayanihan-inspired undertaking is its simplicity.
A Perennial Problem
Lack of working capital is the leading problem of those who wish to put
up their own business. The problem is compounded when the budding
entrepreneurs are impoverished and cannot offer viable collateral. The
poor have had no recourse but to go to the local loan shark for their
financial needs. Local financial resources are inaccessible to the poor
and they have very little participation in local government.
In 2001 Pasay City sought to address that problem. Together with
VEDCOR, a non-government organization, the city government came
up with the Bayanihan Banking Program (BBP).
The BBP intended to:
(a) establish a uniform and compatible savings-based financial intermediation
system among 10 cooperatives, 10 people’s organizations
and 35 barangays in Pasay City;
(b) provide 1,800 poor borrowers access to financial services in a
financially viable and sustainable way; and
(c) establish a network of BBP replicators in cooperation with
VEDCOR to facilitate information exchange, experience sharing and
financial cooperation.
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