DepEd & RCBC team up to promote digital savings

The Department of Education (DepEd) partnered with the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) for its digital savings campaign, promoting this important habit among young learners, parents, and teachers.

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DepEd’s collaboration on RCBC’s Ipon Galing initiative, massive digital financial education awareness campaign will be done nationwide. To further encourage the over 27.5 million learners, as well as teachers and parents, RCBC has launched an incentives promotion for those who will begin their savings journey using the DiskarTech, RCBC’s Taglish finance super app.

“As DepEd also integrated financial literacy in our K-12 curriculum, partnership programs like DiskarTech of RCBC will allow our teachers and learners to experience how technology works for us while we are securing our finances and save for the most important and unanticipated events such as the COVID-19 pandemic,” said DepEd Undersecretary for Finance, Annalyn M. Sevilla who represented DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones.

DiskarTech users will have a chance to win the equivalent amount of their average daily balance during the month-long promo titled “Ipon Galing: Kakakompyuter Mo ‘Yan Raffle.” Qualified transactions within the app, including free fund transfers, cash-ins, and bills payment, have an equivalent number of raffle entries.

On top of this, prepaid phone credits worth P1,000, called “AyuData” or ayudang mobile data, are also up for grabs to lucky promo winners. These electronic load prizes are a month’s worth of mobile data that may be used by learners and teachers for online schooling.

“We pledge to put our hearts, minds and energy to make sure this project is an unqualified success. Let us work together to encourage more Filipinos to save especially the young ones,” said RCBC President and Chief Executive Officer Eugene S. Acevedo.

“In this time of pandemic, having a transaction account has proved crucial to social protection and financial resilience,” said Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Director Ellen Joyce L. Suficiencia of the Center for Learning and Inclusion Advocacy.

Account owners had also been found to have a higher rate of savings, access to digital financial services, and less debt, added Suficiencia.

“With the shift to blended learning modality, there had been challenges faced not just by our learners, but most especially by our teachers, and parents. This collaboration aims to address some of those pain points while further empowering and enabling all our stakeholders in the education sector through this digital platform. We made digital savings fun and exciting,” said Lito Villanueva, RCBC executive vice president and chief innovation and inclusion officer.

“DepEd finds a shared value with the RCBC in our diskarte to not only survive but thrive in this new normal by being agile and innovative. Our partnership hopes to equip our more or less 27.5 million learners, as well as our teachers and parents, nationwide with more skills towards their financial well-being.” DepEd Legislative Affairs, External Partnerships and Project Management Service Undersecretary Tonisito M.C. Umali, Esq. said.

Based on the 2019 Financial Inclusion Survey of the BSP, 53% of adult Filipinos are savers but 51% of them save at home. The survey showed that while account ownership has improved in the last two years, more than two-thirds of Filipinos still lack access to a formal account.

The event was also graced by financial adviser Salve Duplito, host of ABS-CBN News Channel’s On The Money; Mr. Rey Parale, Vice President For External Affairs of the Confederation of Parents-Teachers Association of Makati, and Teacher Arnold Chan, Business Manager of the Federation of Public School Teachers of Makati.

RCBC is one of the leading universal banks accelerating digital transformation in the Philippines. It was judged in 2020 as the Philippines’ best digital bank by the Asiamoney Best Bank Awards and the Alpha Southeast Asia Best Financial Institutions Awards, among other global and regional recognitions. DiskarTech was also recognized as 2020’s breakout finance app in the Philippines by App Annie, a global data analytics provider. Its digital products include RCBC mobile and online banking, handheld ATM Go mobile POS terminals, and DiskarTech, among others.