BSP Opens PERA Retirement Accounts Without Paper Forms
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas rolled out its Open Finance for PERA Pilot on July 29, 2025, connecting five major Philippine financial institutions through consent-based data sharing that eliminates the need for paper forms and manual ID verification.
Key Takeaway
BSP eliminated the paperwork barrier that kept PERA adoption low for eight years.
You can now open a Personal Equity and Retirement Account without touching a single form or submitting your ID manually.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas rolled out its Open Finance for PERA Pilot on July 29, 2025, connecting G-Xchange (GCash's operator), UnionBank of the Philippines, Philippine National Bank, RCBC, and ATRAM Trust Corporation. The system lets customers open PERA accounts entirely online through participating apps — UnionBank already integrated account opening directly into its banking app. The new pilot uses consent-based data sharing across institutions, meaning your existing bank or GCash data can verify your identity without repeating the same paperwork multiple times.
PERA is a tax-incentivized retirement account designed to supplement SSS, GSIS, and other savings instruments. The program launched in 2016 after the PERA Act passed in 2008, but adoption remained low — likely because the friction of manual onboarding turned away potential savers.
BSP positions the pilot as expanding retirement planning access to every Filipino, including overseas workers and their families. OFWs, their spouses, and children can open accounts on behalf of family members, alongside locally employed and self-employed individuals who qualify under the program. G-Xchange operates the country's largest e-wallet, while UnionBank, PNB, and RCBC bring banking infrastructure and ATRAM handles PERA administration across the five participating institutions.
🇵🇭 What This Means for Filipinos: Filipino workers and OFWs can now open retirement accounts through GCash or their existing bank app in minutes instead of dealing with forms and ID submissions at multiple offices. This directly targets the friction that kept PERA uptake low since 2016, making tax-advantaged retirement savings accessible to the 50+ million GCash users and customers of the three participating banks. For OFWs sending remittances home, this simplifies setting up portable retirement accounts that follow them across jobs.
