At a Glance

OUR CORE GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS

Our Two Guiding Principles of Success: Conservative Business Policies & Conservative Financial Products.

“It’s not only how much you earn, it’s how much you keep” is a truism in personal finance. The same holds true also in running a business. First Country has always kept its overhead & marketing expense at minimal levels. Through tie-ups, it is able to generate sales without paying too much salaries & commissions and without maintaining big and expensive offices. Even advertising expense is almost none as it is able to produce sales through more innovative & less costly approaches.

As to risky financial products offered by other companies, you have heard them all … but we NEVER followed suit, to wit:

These very attractive financial promises could surely generate “sales”. BUT WE ARE NOT ONLY AFTER SALES! WE ARE NOT AFTER PEOPLE’S MONEY REGARDLESS OF CONSEQUENCES. We could have marketed any of those mentioned financial products people would have believed us because we are a duly licensed financial company with an SEC Special Permit to Offer Securities and we have our own affiliate bank….BUT WE NEVER PROMOTED THESE DANGEROUS PRODUCTS IN OUR MORE THAN 2 DECADES OF EXISTENCE!

In the “pre-need” industry, the most popular product was the “whatever-the-cost-of-education, we-will-pay-you” (inflation-riding) investment plan. We NEVER even considered selling such product. The companies that sold such highly attractive and popular plan (starting at a measly contract price of P15,000 only!) made a lot of sales, but as every one should know by now is: IT IS NOT ABOUT SELLING MORE, IT IS ABOUT SELLING ONLY WHAT ONE CAN DELIVER!

You already know what happened to most financial institutions that offered inflation-riding educational plans. Some may have survived probably because they stopped selling this investment sooner than the others or have made considerable pricing adjustments.

Another popular investment is the “pension-for-life” plans. Some companies that offered this type are having difficulty paying the promised monthly pension amount and are asking their pensioners to get the lump-sum values of their matured plans instead.

First Country only markets financial products with CONSERVATIVE RETURNS ON INVESTMENT that is moreover FIXED-VALUE (not inflation-riding) funds that are moreover payable LUMP-SUM (not continuing pension). THIS IS PRIMARILY THE REASON WE ARE IN GOOD FINANCIAL HEALTH.

We NEVER promised high, variable or indeterminable yields for more important to us is the SAFETY, PRESERVATION & SECURITY OF YOUR PRINCIPAL INVESTMENT. We believe that you have worked hard for your money. It is our obligation to ensure that your money is safe. Thus, we NEVER invested in derivatives or hybrid securities linked to real estate, credit default swaps and other high-sounding investments whose underlying values are questionable or not easily determinable. (The bulk of investments are in government guaranteed treasury bills, corporate papers/bonds/special deposits with big local companies & commercial banks & minimal stocks in blue chip companies).

We also hope that Filipinos have learned from their mistakes already. As the saying goes, “if it is too good to be true, then it is NOT true.”

First Country has survived the Asian Financial Crisis, several local political crises (People Power 1,2 & 3) that affected our economy, and the current USA-led economic crunch that has for its victims huge financial multi-national companies (like AIG, CitiBank, etc.). Now, you know why. When it comes to investing, SAFETY FIRST! That has always been our guide

Kaya para sa kasiguruhan ng pera mo, sa First Country ka na! SAFETY FIRST WITH FIRST COUNTRY. ABOVE ALL….INTEGRITY!!!