Largest Pawnshop Businesses in Philippines : Ken Research

The Philippines economy stood as the 40th largest economy in the world and has been one of the most budding amongst other economies in the Asian region in the last five years. The government of Philippines has carried out a string of legislative changes to improve the entrepreneurial environment and to make the private sector stronger to produce a healthy job growth. Higher growth in 2014 was largely led by fertile private consumption and construction, the revival of public spending as well as the growth in net exports. The growth in Philippines economy was the highest amongst the ASEAN-5 countries. One of the major factors that drove growth in private construction was the rising demand for residential and office space, According to the Research Analyst, Ken Research.

The market for domestic money transfers in the Philippines has been exceedingly dynamic and has matured since the last five years. Practically everybody who wished to make a domestic money transfer or a remote bill payment does so and has a gamut of alternatives available in terms of the presence of numerous formal payments service providers (PSP) in a market with high competition. The market has also been flooded with informal means of making payments which include friends, family and vehicle drivers. Domestic money transfers encompass both remote money remittances and payment of bills.

According to the central bank of the Philippines, approximately 8 out of 10 heads of Filipino households do not have any bank accounts, with the majority not having adequate cash accumulated for emergencies. The domestic remittance space in Philippines has largely been a cash-to-cash market, with the money flowing from several informal modes of payment such as friends, family, drivers and others. Pawnshops have been an important part of Philippines’ financial sector, surpassing banks in terms of physical reach. . Comparing to other financial institutions, pawnshops outnumbered savings and loans associations, universal and commercial banks, and rural banks. Palawan Pawnshop, Cebuana, Lhuilier and M Lhuilier are three of the largest pawnshop businesses in the Philippines, offering a variety of money transfer services.

Philippines ranked as the third largest recipient of remittances worldwide in 2014, followed by France, Germany, Bangladesh, Belgium, Spain, and Nigeria, and trailed India and China. The Philippines received remittances from all over the globe. However, a momentous proportion of remittances were received from the US, followed by Saudi Arabia and UAE. Even though the US has not been amongst the leading destinations for Filipinos, it has continued to dominate the remittance inflows in the Philippines over the past five years. Filipinos have been recorded as the second largest immigrant group in the US, with the category being led by Mexican immigrants.

The continued expansion of remittances in the past several years has been impelled by the sustained innovation on the part of banks, money transfer companies and other financial institutions which provide remittance services to overseas Filipino workers. Majority of the money remittances received by Filipino households are routed through commercial banks. On the other hand, money transfer companies such as I-Remit, LBC Express, Western Union, Xoom and Money Gram were also important remittance channels for OFWs in the Philippines, According to the Research Analyst, Ken Research.