Joan Frances I.

Malaya
ACFINA3 M72
Reflection on the BSP Tour

The main topic that really stuck with me from the class trip to the Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas was the Three Pillars of Central Banking (Price Stability,
Financial Stability, and Efficient Payments & Settlements System). For many
years I never really knew what our countrys central bank did. For me it was just
an important government establishment full of mystery, a bank that did not take
deposits or give loans to regular people. Thanks to ACFINA3, I now know a lot
more about how central banks generally work throughout the world. The BSP
tour in particular gave me an idea of the essence of our own countrys central
bank.
When I watch business news, people always talk about interest rates. I
barely understood what those rates meant for me. Now I know more about it,
and I know that the BSP has the power to control interest rates, which has effects
on the inflation rate.
Because of ACFINA3 and the tour, I also learned exactly how the central
bank supervises and monitors the banks that regular Filipinos go to. I particularly
remember the speakers tip about not withdrawing money from an ATM machine
around midnight, because it could result in my bank account temporarily having
an abnormally high (or low) balance, because thats when all Philippine banks
have their system maintenance.

The visit to the Money Museum was also very interesting for me. It was
amusing to see how people from many years ago traded objects for valuefrom
beautiful gold necklaces to the macuquinas coins brought in to the Philippines
from the Galleon trade, to the money my grandparents must have had when they
were around my age. Finding the recently demonetized New Design Series bank
notes displayed made me feel oldmoney Ive grown up using will soon be only
found in museums such as the one at the BSP.
I think the activity was useful because I got a better idea of how the
Philippines Central Bank works. In ACFINA3, we learn mostly about the Federal
Reserve of the US, so it was nice to see a presentation dedicated to explaining
how our own countrys central bank functions. The presentation of the BSPs
librarian also was very useful for me because I never even knew that they had a
library! This revelation is very helpful for me because I will be working on my
thesis next term, and I might be able to find useful materials that can only be
found at the BSP library.