ABSTRACT
Understanding the Philippine financial market requires an appreciation of its macroeconomic environment. While there are references to financial institutions operating in the country as early as the 18th century, one has to consider that they were doing so without the formal oversight by a financial regulator. 1 These regulators – the Insular Treasurer was designated as the Insurance Commissioner in 1914, the office of which was the precursor of the Insurance Commission (IC); the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was established in October 1936; while the Central Bank of the Philippines (CBP) came into being in 1948 – were all in place in the first half of the 20th century, but coming out of the ruins of World War II, one can imagine that the focus was on reconstruction and recovery rather than development.
