With legal safeguards in place, we extended lifeline support to the national government in the form of provisional advances worth P540 billion to augment its resources for COVID-related spending. In sum, the BSP injected P2.2 trillion into the financial system, equivalent to 12.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product for 2020 as of July 21, 2021.
At the same time, we implemented various time-bound regulatory relief measures to enable banks and their clients manage the impact of the pandemic on their finances. These measures range from grace periods for loan payments to capping of interest rates on credit card usage, among others.