WHILE financial exclusion fell from 56 percent in 2017 to 19 percent in 2025, a central bank official pointed out that lack of access to banking and financial services remains rampant in agriculture, youth and informal sectors.
Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, Deputy Governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for the Regional Operations and Advocacy Sector, emphasized that behind these numbers are millions more people who can open an account, make a digital payment, save safely and connect to formal financial services.
‘But as I mentioned before, access is only a starting point,’ Romulo-Puyat said during the ‘Asean-EU Business Summit 2026,’ thus, raising these questions: ‘Can a family meet its daily needs and still prepare for an emergency? Can a farmer recover after a bad harvest? or can workers save for old age?’
As such, another central bank official divulged which segments are still ‘financially excluded’ in the country.
Mynard Bryan R. Mojica, Director for Financial Inclusion Office at the BSP, said in terms of segments, financial exclusion is ‘still very high’ among farmers, the youth and informal workers.
‘So in terms of segments where financial exclusion is still very high, we’re looking at the agriculture sector, the farmers, where you have around 3 out of 10 farmers are [financially] included. So 7 out of 10 are excluded. You also have interestingly-the youth sector also has a large exclusion, because even if they are tech savvy, they have smartphones. They use that smartphone not for financial transactions, but basically for social media.And then you have the informal sector workers,’ Mojica said during the summit.
At the individual level, Mojica said the central bank still sees ‘lack of money’ as the main reason why many Filipinos are financially excluded.
‘So if you have a limited disposable income, where is the ownership in that puzzle? And of course, as a central bank, we can only do so much in terms of addressing that lack of money problem,’ added the BSP official.
Meanwhile, Romulo-Puyat explained that the central bank is not only working on expanding financial access in the country. Beyond this, she said the BSP also aims to ‘measure and improve financial health’ in the country.
‘Missing layer of protection’
WITH insurance remaining a ‘missing layer of protection’ among many households and businesses, the BSP deputy governor said the central bank is set to expand access to insurance through banks by updating its bancassurance guidelines.
‘Banks already have trusted relationships with their clients. By making it easier for them to offer appropriate insurance because alongside banking products and services, we can help more families get insurance. At the end of the day, this is really about giving people greater confidence in their future,’ added Romulo-Puyat.
On the sidelines of the summit, she told reporters that the updated bancassurance guidelines were slated to be released this year to give banks more options to provide insurance products outside their own conglomerates.
‘It should be this year. Now, it’s within the conglomerate but we’re expanding it. It’s really supposed to be for this year, the exposure to expand bancassurance,’ added Romulo-Puyat.
As to what has caused the delay of the issuance of guidelines, she added: ‘I’m sure not that major because we are pushing for it. I don’t think anybody will be against it. Because it’s just giving banks more options…to provide insurance.’