LANDBANK to beef up physical, digital services to drive financial inclusion

State-run Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) is marking 60 years of public service with plans to further expand its physical presence in unbanked and underserved communities, while enhancing its digital services to consistently deliver a seamless and exceptional customer experience.

LANDBANK president and CEO Lynette V. Ortiz said that the bank will continue to support the national government’s development agenda by improving access to reliable, relevant, and convenient financial services.

“We are adopting a ‘phygital’ strategy to cater to our customer’s evolving preferences and demands with increased investments in expanding our physical touchpoints and beefing up our digital offerings. LANDBANK is ready to reach and serve a wider customer base, as we continue to bring more Filipinos into the financial mainstream,” said Ortiz.

The only bank operating in all 82 provinces of the country, LANDBANK eyes to establish physical touchpoints in all 1,634 cities and municipalities nationwide to bring banking services closer to Filipinos.

As of June 30, LANDBANK has 606 branches and branch-lite units, 58 lending centers, 2,951 automated teller machines (ATMs), 226 cash deposit machines (CDMs), and 1,785 Agent Banking Partner POS cash-out terminals.

LANDBANK is currently present in 85.4% or 1,396 cities and municipalities in the country, including the previously unbanked towns of Sallapadan in Abra, Barlig in Mountain Province, Tamparan in Lanao del Sur, Anahawan in Southern Leyte, and Kinoguitan in Misamis Oriental.

In support of the government’s digitalization push, LANDBANK is also looking to onboard all government offices in its digital platforms to increase operational efficiency, improve the ease of doing business, and enhance meaningful public service delivery.

From January to June of this year, the bank has onboarded a total of 180 government entities to its Link.BizPortal payment platform, and facilitated across all its digital channels a total of 96.52 million transactions valued at P3.9 trillion.

LANDBANK is also working closely with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in providing unbanked Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) registrants with their own transaction accounts with no initial deposit.

As of June, LANDBANK has already onboarded 8.35 million unbanked Filipinos to the formal banking system, allowing for convenient fund management and access to financial transactions such as cash withdrawals, fund transfers, and online bills payments.

LANDBANK has likewise taken significant steps to make digital banking more affordable, which includes recently reducing the transaction fees for online fund transfers to other banks through InstaPay, from P25 to P15.

The bank has also doubled the total daily amount limit of fund transfers via InstaPay from P50,000.00 to P100,000.00, subject to a maximum amount of P50,000.00 per transaction.

LANDBANK, which was established on August 8, 1963 through Republic Act No. 3844 or the Agricultural Land Reform Code, will celebrate its 60th anniversary on Aug. 8, representing six decades of uplifting lives, empowering communities, and serving the nation—towards building an inclusive and sustainable economy.

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Editor’s Note: This article was provided by Land Bank of the Philippines.