Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) was one of the participants at a recently concluded virtual conference by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (EJAP) and Aboitiz Group titled “Gut Feel: Ensuring Sustainability of Food and Utilities” which focused on what the public and private sectors are doing to ensure that food, energy, connectivity, banking, and other basic necessities remain sustainable especially amid the current global health crisis.
UnionBank’s Executive Vice President and Chief Mass Market & Financial Inclusion Executive Chut Santiago joined the event as a speaker, wherein he talked about UnionBank’s digital platforms and how they enable customers to access banking products and services safely and conveniently.
Santiago cited the sustained increase in the number of digital account openings processed by the Bank monthly, and said that the Bank expects to sustain this momentum as it continues to scale its digital capabilities. “The monthly increase in our digital account signups have remained to be at the same level, and we expect this to continue as we offer new services and target new segments in the market,” Santiago said.
He reiterated that UnionBank remains committed to enabling inclusive prosperity in the country even during the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with this, the Bank has been investing continuously in state-of-the-art hardware and software to beef up its banking network’s connectivity and security, to ensure that its banking products and services remain accessible and are protected from cyber threats.
“UnionBank operates with a greater purpose of empowering Filipinos and our businesses, and our objective is to be able to uplift their lives and achieve economic prosperity, because we believe that financial inclusion cannot be achieved unless we have economic prosperity,” Santiago said. “We take in mind that in order for us to achieve financial inclusion, we need to be able to have our products and services help our consumers and our businesses achieve success in what they do.”
Aside from investments in software and hardware, UnionBank is also hard at work in enabling digital transformation that is also people-based, through programs that educate people on the importance of going digital, promoting a digital-capable workforce, and inspiring change through technology driven education. The Bank believes that these kinds of programs are also important in ensuring that basic banking services are sustainable.
“We have a program which we call “Tech-Up Pilipinas” and this program is intended to provide technology by transforming businesses, by providing the tools for our consumers to be able to move towards living in this new normal and we are committed to continuously delivering on that promise.”
