This is Part 1 of 2 blogposts about financial inclusion and savings behaviors in teh Philippines: https://www.imtfi.uci.edu/research/2014/opiniano_ang.php

Project abastract: This mixed methods action research from the Philippines that was supported by the IMTFI sought to determine if financial inclusion is a factor for remitters’ and remittance recipients’ investing in the rural hometown. Overseas remittances are a development resource for the countries where overseas migrants come from —but so are the rural communities where they were born. Overseas migrants even maintain a relationship with their rural communities since their families reside there, and they still receive remittances from breadwinners abroad. Is the rural community’s socio-economic and investment conditions conducive for overseas townmates and their households to invest in? But do these rural folk, with or without overseas remittances, have financial aptitude levels that can empower them to save and invest their surplus earnings in the place that they are familiar with? With rural financial institutions also coming in to the picture to lure this segment of the rural market called overseas migrants, are these banks, cooperatives and microfinance institutions capturing this rural hometown’s migrant market?

To answer these questions, the researchers utilized a mixed methods research tool tested in two earlier rounds. Called the Remittance Investment Climate Analysis in Rural Hometowns, RICART is a tool rural birthplaces, migrant organizations, civil society groups, financial institutions and local governments can use to determine ways of luring overseas-based townmates for savings and investments. Quantitative market surveys were done targeting overseas migrants and migrant and non-migrant households who were physically present in the community, and these were subjected to a logit regression to determine probabilities of saving, investing and doing business in the rural hometown. A rapid rural appraisal was also done to get secondary data that is under the guidance of a Local Competitiveness Framework that was developed locally by the Philippine government and some academics. Key informant interviews with local officials also guided the rapid rural appraisal. Finally, a focus group discussion with some migrant household heads helped researchers conduct a phenomenography of the similarities and differences surrounding rural investing decisions by remittance recipients. Putting all these data together through data triangulation enabled the researchers to present a Remittance Investment Climate (ReIC) analysis of the locality, the first-class municipality of Guiguinto in Bulacan province in the Philippines (an hour’s drive north of the Philippine capital Manila).