FX swaps decline to $15.4 B in February

By LEE C. CHIPONGIAN

April 1, 2011, 12:11am

MANILA, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s (BSP) foreign exchange (FX) swaps dropped to $15.4 billion in February compared to January, unwinding $600 million liquidity into the system for the month.

FX swaps are foreign currency assets in both short and long positions in forwards and futures. Of the swaps, $7.29 billion matured in February, $6.91 billion are maturing in three months and $1.19 billion within the year.

BSP conducts FX swaps to fund FX balances. It is a financial transaction between two parties which agreed to exchange two currencies at a certain exchange rate in an agreed future date.

FX swaps are not part of the official gross international reserves figures of the BSP, but it is considered as reserves. As of end-February, GIR totaled $63.89 billion and with the swaps, the country’s reserves totaled $79.29 billion.

BSP expects GIR to hit $70 billion this year from $62.37 billion at the end of 2010, while the International Monetary Fund projects higher at $78 billion.

The BSP last year, like the corporate sector, took advantage of the weak US dollar and surging inflows and accumulated FX, increasing its hoard for better hedging strategy and to stock up for future challenges in the external sector. To improve its income from investments abroad, the central bank was planning to raise its investments in emerging market debt (EMD) by $300 million this year.

However sources said BSP was concerned about "constraints" to investing in EMD, such as that EMD currencies are not considered as reserve eligible, which means the additional $300-million investments in EMD will not be considered part of the GIR.

Investing in global EMD would still entail extra returns for the BSP's portfolio, but betting on their creditworthiness may not be appropriate at the moment.

As of September 2010, only $300 million of the $45-billion investable foreign assets were invested in the Asian Bond Fund (ABF), such as the EMEAP (Executives’ Meeting of the East Asia-Pacific Central Banks) ABF1 which have exposures in a basket of dollar-denominated bonds issued by sovereigns in Asia, and the so-called ABF2 which the Philippines was also investing in. ABF2 was a Pan Asian bond fund with several single market funds or bond exchange traded indices.

Money Matters!

March 11, 2011, 3:19pm

MANILA, Philippines – One is never too young  to learn about money… especially when kids get to learn it in a fun interactive way.

Citibank, through a grant from CITI Foundation, and Museo Pambata teamed up to create a one-of-a-kind traveling exhibit that allowed kids to deal, first-hand, with “money matters” without the usual boring stuff (read: Math). 

The exhibit “Money Matters for Kids,” which recently made its last stop, at the Multi-Purpose Hall of the famous children’s museum, featured a mock grocery set-up with food and toys where kids can shop with mock money and experience budgeting. There is even an ATM machine and a calculator nearby which the kids can use to check if they have gone over the budget.

“The activity lets children realize that money has a value. We know this but often, we do not really realize it. Letting them do their own budgeting will help them see that money can “disappear” if they squander it,” says Museo Pambata president and CEO Nina Lim Yuson.

According to Lim-Yuson, it is important that kids recognize the difference between a need and a want especially now when kids have become so materialistic. In the grocery set-up the kids are confronted with these two choices: food (need) and toys (want).

“Those who know how to handle money would buy the ‘need’ like food and save the rest for the future. Then, they spend their savings for education or for travels, which would enrich you. Unfortunately, there a lot nowadays who would rather buy a new cellphone. Young children think that way already… that they must have a cellphone or a TV in their room. Maybe it’s because they’ve seen how adults do it”

Thus, parents must be careful in what they show to children because kids copy what they do. “So be cautious and be wise on how you handle your money because those are the habits that they will develop. Even the school they go to has a responsibility in preventing materialism. I, for instance, prefer those schools, which frown upon branded pencils and branded school supplies. Maybe, that’s why uniforms are good too.”

Other parts of exhibit showed kids how to spot the fake from the real money through a “Spot the difference” challenge and chronicled the history of Philippine money. It even had a section where the kids were introduced to the men and women that graced the Philippine peso bills. They will also get to learn about different currencies.

The traveling exhibit was launched in 2009 and has since gone around Metro Manila and even Tagaytay, helping about 90,000 kids develop their money IQ.  [Amyline Quien Ching]