Young, upwardly mobile Filipinos who spend much of their time on the Internet, are scouring the web for personal finance advice relevant to the Philippine setting, and are flocking to websites like Income-tacts.com, a forum populated by Filipino financial planning practitioners.

“Objective advice” is the operative word, says Efren Ll. Cruz, chairman and chief executive officer of Personal Finance Advisers, the company that owns the website. Cruz says Filipinos are very wary about tainted advice and the one thing that separates Income-tacts from other personal finance websites is that it does not market specific financial instruments.

“There are many products out there to manage finances. More often than not, however, you don’t get an objective view because they are explained from the point of view of the salesman. That’s what we provide: the objective view,” says Cruz.
Some of the most popular topics in the forum, for example, are ways to save money in the Philippines, the real deal about companies offering 20 percent per annum in interest, how people made their first million, what are the best performing unit investment trust funds and mutual funds and how to legally flip properties.

J. Randell Tiongson, president of Personal Finance Advisors, a director of the Registered Financial Planning Institute and a training specialist at Generali Pilipinas, says most of the site’s readers are single, young, interested in savings, investments and managing debt, and are looking for good investment products. Some complain about pushy sales people. Posts average at 200 a month within 150 topics. The most number of forum members recorded online in a single day was 29 on April 1 this year.

One of the success factors of Income-tacts is its list of writers. A number of writers in the Experts’ Forum are independent financial planners, Cruz says, while others are employed with financial services companies but strive to write only independent advice. The roster of writers include bestselling author and motivational speaker Francis Kong, lifestyle coach Chinkee Tan, Jim Sarmiento, certified financial planner, Atty. Carlo Carino, legal consultant for financial advisory and Atty. Caloy Ocampo, co-author of Cruz for his second book Pwede Na: The Pinoy Guide to Retirement and Estate Planning.

“The site is open to both experts, savers and investors. Even if the experts who write are connected with certain companies, they try their best to be objective, like Randell and me,” says Cruz.

Cruz observed that there are many Filipino personal finance websites and blogs that are sprouting on the Internet and said it’s crucial that readers determine for themselves which are authentic and which ones are just out there to make a quick buck on them.

“I have seen a couple of sites, not blogs, and with some the commissions are so huge. Their charges are larger than what it would cost you to trade with a broker or have your money managed by the trust department of any bank. Fees of the usual capital market intermediaries are transparent. They should compare such fees with the fees that these sites are charging,” Cruz says, without naming names.

He says that while there is growing interest in money management, the greater majority of Filipinos still fail to balance their finances.

“Some don’t listen to reason and just follow their instincts. Some are duped by scams. Some are simply led on by very attractive advertising and gimmicks,” Cruz says.

Cruz and Tiongson are targeting 4,000 forum members by year-end, a growth of 200 percent from the current membership of 1,300. Not bad from a marriage of two Yahoo groups, two visionaries’ desire to educate Filipinos on financial literacy and the simplest of all marketing tools –- a website. One that MoneySmarts believes is totally recommended reading for the serious saver and investor.