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Funds sent by overseas Filipinos posted a year-on-year increase in February mainly driven by the increase in inflows from land-based and sea-based workers during the month, data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Tuesday showed. Cash remittances or money transfers through banks or formal channels were recorded at $2.716 billion in February, 2.
7% higher than the $2.646 billion sent the same month last year, but lower than the $2.918 billion in January .
This brought year-to-date cash remittances to $5.633 billion, up by 2.8% from $5.
481 billion in the comparable period of 2024. "The growth in cash remittances from the United States (US), Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) mainly contributed to the increase in remittances in January-February 2025," the BSP said in an emailed statement. The US accounted for the largest share of overall cash remittances for the two-month period with 40.
9%, followed by Singapore with 7.6%, Saudi Arabia with 6.0%, Japan with 5.
3%, and the United Kingdom with 4.8%. The UAE accounted for 4.
0%, Canada with 3.2%, Taiwan with 2.9%, Qatar with 2.
8%, and Hong Kong with 2.6%, while other countries contributed the remaining 20.0%.
The BSP noted, however, that remittances coursed through money couriers cannot be disaggregated by actual country source and these are lodged under the country where the main offices are located, which is in the United States in many cases. Personal remittances—the sum of transfers sent in cash or in-kind via informal channels—stood at $3.024 billion in February, up by 2.
6% from $2.946 billion the previous year, but lower than the $3.243 billion in January.
Personal remittances from workers with contracts of at least a year were recorded at $2.37 billion, and at $0.58 billion for those with contracts of less than a year.
Year-to-date personal remittances increased by 2.7% to $6.267 billion from $6.
100 billion the same period in 2024. — VDV, GMA Integrated News.
