Single bank account for gov’t launched

By Michelle V. Remo

Philippine Daily Inquirer

8:51 pm | Monday, November 25th, 2013

The Bureau of the Treasury on Monday launched the Treasury Single Account (TSA), a scheme wherein the government will have one bank account for all its line agencies.

The bank account will be with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and will be implemented in January 2014.

With the TSA, bank accounts of government agencies in various banks will effectively be dissolved.

Under the new scheme, however, banks may still conduct business with the government. In particular, they can still serve as accredited agent banks (AABs) through which individuals and businesses may pay taxes and other government fees.

But under the new system, banks may no longer hold the collections for an extended period. Instead, they have to remit collections every day to the government’s account with the BSP.

This differs from the existing system wherein banks are given a 10-day float, during which they may use the collections for short-term investments. The float period serves as compensation for the banks’ service.

Under the new system, banks will instead be paid a certain fee for their service.

According to Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, the government would save at least P1.5 billion a year from the implementation of the TSA. With a single bank account, the Treasury will immediately determine the deficit of the entire bureaucracy for any given day. As such, it will be able to avoid over-borrowing that entails unnecessary interest costs.

“With the TSA, the government’s cash operations become more efficient,” he said during the launch of the TSA at the Bureau of the Treasury in Manila.

National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said the TSA also would help government cash operations become more transparent as was patterned from best practices in other countries.

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Tags: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas , Business , Government , treasury single account

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