For many frugal-minded Filipinos, money is meant to be saved. And the first instinct in saving money is to put it in the bank. However, simply putting money in a bank can mean that it remains stagnant.
According to the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the 2014 weighted average of interest rates for savings accounts is 0.626% and time deposits are 1.033% per annum. The compounding interest is not currently keeping up with the rate of inflation, which according to data from the World Bank, was at an average of 3.0% in 2013, and 4.1% in 2014. The disparity is significant since the savings accounts and time deposit rates are gross. When tax is also factored into the equation, over an extended period of time the purchasing power of money locked away in a bank will decrease substantially.
More and more Filipinos have learned to invest their hard-earned money either in their own business, or in stocks, hence the excellent performance of the Philippine stock market in the past few months. However, not all have the capital or time for attending to the details of running a business, or keeping track of the fluctuations of the stock market since it can be a full-time job in and of itself.
It takes a lot of money to start a business or personally invest in a diversified set of stocks, with a mutual fund the latter is made easy. By purchasing shares in a fund, your money is managed and invested by professional fund managers, and you can rest easy knowing that your investments are diversified to help safeguard against dramatic losses should a sector of the market go sour.
In choosing a mutual fund company, both new and veteran investors decide to go with the tried-and-true—owned and managed by large and notable companies, backed by a history of reliability.
Established in 1992, Philam Asset Management, Inc. (PAMI) is one of the largest asset and wealth managers in the mutual fund industry with more than PhP40 Billion Assets under management as of December 2014, offers an array of mutual fund options, for potential investors with a small or large amount of capital and a conservative to aggressive risk appetite. The largest mutual fund in PAMI’s stable is the Philam Strategic Growth Fund, an equities based fund for aggressive investors that offers potential returns and inflows from shares in companies listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), with P16.951B in assets under management (AUM) as of December 2014.
For less adventurous investors, the Philam Fund offers a combination of fixed-income investments—such as bonds, as well as stocks. By having a balanced fund, investors can better steel themselves against the volatility of the market, and reduce risk to their investment. For conservative investors, they will find safety and security in the Philam Bond Fund, exclusively investing in local government bonds.
To learn more about how you can invest in a mutual fund and which investments are best for your money, please call (02) 817-PAMI (7264), or visit www.philamfunds.com.
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