Several financial institutions now offering fully online process to open PERA

SEVERAL financial institutions are now offering a fully online application process for opening a Personal Equity and Retirement Account (PERA) under the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) open finance pilot, making the voluntary retirement saving and investment program more accessible.

- Katherine K. Chan

In a statement on Thursday, the central bank said customers of G-Xchange, Inc., the operator of e-wallet GCash, Philippine National Bank (PNB), and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) who tap ATRAM Trust Corp. as their PERA administrator can open accounts digitally.

Previously, opening a PERA required customers to fill out forms manually and submit supporting documents such as identification cards to PERA administrators.

“By participating in the project, G-Xchange, UBP, PNB, and RCBC can now securely share customer information — with the customer's consent — to ATRAM,” the BSP said.