In response to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas' (BSP) call to help advance financial literacy among Filipinos, EastWest Bank, in partnership with the Bank Marketing Association of the Philippines (BMAP), recently hosted a financial education classes for seafarers at the Mariners' Polytechnic Training Center in Malate, Manila. The free financial literacy classes ran weekly for one month and tackled various aspects of investments, and financial planning and management.

Through this undertaking, EastWest aims to empower mariners with information that will help them ensure that each hard-earned remittance is managed wisely. There have been many unfortunate stories before about seafarers working long and hard only to end up with no substantial savings and investments.

The Philippines is one of the top sources of seafarers in the world, according to a November 2012 paper compiled by the International Labor Organization. Approximately 20 percent of the 1.2 million seafarers around the world are Filipinos and their remittances amount to more than US$1 billion annually.

The major economic contribution of sea-based OFWs' remittances is backed by the latest online data from the BSP. According to the BSP, the preliminary 2013 first quarter remittances of sea-based OFWs grew by six percent year-on-year.

The class was a wake-up call for 32-year-old seafarer-in-training Nick Jason Cimafranca. "Na-realize ko na dapat nga talaga kapag may sweldo, ipon muna bago gastos. Madalas kasi baliktad tayo. Gastos muna tapos saka na mag-iipon kung may matira. E paano kung wala? Tayo rin ang kawawa sa katagalan.(I realized that the right way really is to save before spending. Usually, we're used to doing it the other way. What happens is we spend and then we only save if there's any more money left. What if there's nothing left? It'll be our loss in the long run.)," he shared.

Most of the attendees were of the marrying age and the financial session helped them reassess their plans for the immediate future. "Madali naman magpakasal pero 'yung gastos pagkatapos ang mas dapat paghandaan(It's easy to get married but it's the expenses after that really need careful planning.)," said another attendee. "Ngayon napapa-isip na talaga akong seryosohin ang pag-iipon (Right now, I really want to focus on saving up.)."

Aside from this class, EastWest continues to look for other initiatives to share its financial expertise among Filipinos. EastWest is a subsidiary of the Filinvest Development Corporation (FDC), one of the largest and well-established business conglomerates in the country. FDC, established in 1955, is identified with the Gotianun family and, aside from banking, its business interests include real estate, sugar, hospitality and tourism, and power-generation.