Another government bank for OFWs?

Three government banks -- DBP, LBP, and PPSB (Phil. Postal Savings Bank) -- and possibly to include OWWA, planning to create an OFW bank. Their purpose is to help reduce remittance fees charged by private commercial banks and remittance centers.

The plan is that OFWs can send their remittances to the Postal Bank through post offices abroad, their folks in the Philippines an withraw the money through Postal Bank ATMs in post offices (POs) here, if POs are wired. If not, they can withraw from DBP, LBP and PPSB branches.

For me, this is another government bureaucracy and intervention.
If remittance fees are high, then it means (a) there are not enough competition, not enough players of remittance centers/banks, and (b) government taxes, registration fees and procedures, are high and complicated. Hence, one option for government if it is really serious in helping OFWs and their families in income repatriation is to (i) liberalize further bank and remittance centers competition, and (ii) cut high taxes and complicated procedures, and scrap the unnecessary ones.

This is similar to the phenomenon of why "placement fee" by potential and returning OFWs are high. There aren't enough competition among reliable manpower recruitment agencies, mainly because of the high costs of getting POEA accreditation. The costs are both official/published fees + unofficial/under-the-table bribes so that their application for business will be approved, and at a faster pace.