I recently visited a branch of Banco de Oro, one of the largest banks in the Philippines. Scattered all over the place are advertisements of its products and services: savings accounts, home & auto loans, internet banking. But one product is missing, possibly important for its many customers and the point of my visit there: unit investment trust fund (UITF).
UITFs are just like mutual funds, i.e. clients pool money to be invested by professional managers to various asset classes. Based from previous performance of these funds, these are superior to traditional bank products like savings and time deposit. I just have to wonder why they don’t get advertised. I may be wrong but maybe the bank gets more returns from its other products than UITFs.
I’m quite satisfied with the performance of both mutual funds and UITFs for now. But eventually, I’ll invest (gamble?) on what the managers play with: stocks.
