MANILA, Feb. 18 Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has thanked the Congress for its swift and timely passage of the Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer (FIST) Act, a law recently signed by President Duterte that allows financial institutions to efficiently offload their bad loans and non-performing assets amid the COVID-19-induced global economic slump.
“We thank our lawmakers for acting quickly in passing the FIST bill, which was signed into law by the President on February 16, 2021. The bill was passed within the first year of the pandemic, making it an effective measure in ensuring the stability of our financial system amid the global health and financial crises. The FIST law will allow banks to free up much-needed liquidity for lending to the productive sectors of our economy that are crucial to our recovery,” Dominguez said.