Personal remittances reach US$3.1B in October 2021

Personal remittances from Overseas Filipinos (OFs) reached US$3.117 billion in October 2021, higher by 2.4 percent than the US$3.044 billion registered in the same month last year.

This resulted in the increase in cumulative remittances by 5.4 percent to US$28.816 billion in the first ten months of 2021 from US$27.346 billion recorded in the comparable period in 2020.

The increase in personal remittances in October was due to remittances sent by:

-land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more, which rose by 2.8 percent to US$2.441 billion from US$2.374 billion in the same month last year; and

-sea- and land-based workers with work contracts of less than one year, which grew by 0.5 percent to US$615 million from US$612 million a year ago.

Of the personal remittances from OFs, cash remittances coursed through banks increased by 2.4 percent to US$2.812 billion in October 2021 from US$2.747 billion registered in the same month in 2020.

The expansion in cash remittances was due to the increase in receipts from land-based and sea-based workers, which rose by 2.8 percent (to US$2.247 billion from US$2.186 billion) and 0.6 percent (to US$565 million from US$561 million), respectively.

On a year-to-date basis, cash remittances in January to October 2021 amounted to US$25.929 billion, 5.3 percent higher than the year-ago level of US$24.633 billion.

The growth in cash remittances from the United States (U.S.), Taiwan, and Malaysia contributed largely to the increase in remittances in January-October 2021.

Meanwhile, in terms of country sources, the U.S. posted the highest share of overall remittances at 40.9 percent in the first ten months of 2021, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Taiwan, Qatar, and South Korea.^[1]

The combined remittances from these top ten countries accounted for 79.0 percent of total cash remittances during the period.

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^[1] There are some limitations on the remittance data by source. A common practice of remittance centers in various cities abroad is to course remittances through correspondent banks, most of which are located in the U.S. Also, remittances coursed through money couriers cannot be disaggregated by actual country source and are lodged under the country where the main offices are located, which, in many cases, is in the U.S. Therefore, the U.S. would appear to be the main source of OF remittances because banks attribute the origin of funds to the most immediate source. The countries are listed in order of their share of cash remittances, i.e., from highest to lowest.