LUXEMBOURG – DEVELOPMENT finance experts met in Luxemburg last month and set the stage for a mechanism to channel overseas Filipinos’ money for investment in the Philippines.

On the sidelines of a roadshow by nongovernment Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos (Ercof), former Citibank executive, British national Patrick Goodman met with Ercof president Ildefonso Bagasao and Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP) president William Hotchkiss III to develop two microfinance investment funds (MFIFs).

MANILA — MIGRANT workers’ rights advocates nipped government’s idea of taxing select Filipinos working overseas to shore up its expenditure program.

Persons familiar with the issue told the OFW Journalism Consortium that top finance officials have floated again the idea of lifting the tax exemptions granted in 1997 to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

MANILA — A THUMBNAIL-SIZE ceramic chip in the Philippines is changing the way cash is couriered from its citizens across continents.

This chip, called a SIM card, has also earned smiles from multilateral agencies such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, which, for years, have been egging on banks to bring down the cost of sending money from anywhere in the world.

BRUSSELS, Belgium — THEY were raring to explain the basics of savings and financial literacy among Filipino migrants in the European Union. But the financial literacy advocates on a roadshow early November found out that Pinoys there are ahead of their class.

The nonprofit Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos (ERCOF) did a four-country roadshow to drum up awareness among overseas Filipinos on saving and investments.

UTRECHT, The Netherlands – During her recent vacation in her home town, Jessie Ligan had to go the next province of Agusan del Norte to buy vegetables, fish, and meat products.

This is a far cry from when she left Magsaysay, Misamis Oriental for the Netherlands in 1981. Back then, her hometown’s public market was bustling with activity. The same could be said of the bus station, which today is opened only during the annual fiesta.

“We had a public market and a bus terminal. Now both are gone,” Ligan lamented.