Various studies shows that about 70% of the Filipino migrants are unable to save for their long term goals to enable them to return and reintegrate. Oftentimes migrants plan to work abroad only for 3-5 years but they end up working for 25 to 30 years and still with not enough investment to enable them to retire comfortably.

The main factors posing obstacles in using financial products linked to remittance are:

1. Lack of family goal setting and financial planning. Migrants work abroad dreaming of setting up business and investing but when they are already abroad they are confronted with a lot of issues and concerns and forget about their dreams and goals.

2. Another obstacle is the presence of family issues that drain the resources of the migrants such as family dependency and luxurious lifestyle of the family. Family members stop working the moment there is a migrant.

3. Another factor is the migrants’ lack of information on financial products. This is because of lack of avenues to reach the migrants, posed by their working and living conditions.

4. Another factor is lack of innovative financial products in their communities that responds to their and their families needs. More than the yield of their investment, the migrants’ main concern is how to provide economic opportunities to their dependent family members who continuously drain their resources.