Banking & Finance

Preliminary figures released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that the country’s total trade contracted 38.7% and the trade deficit shrank 48.9% in May 2020

Year-on-year headline inflation eased to 2.1 percent in May from 2.2 percent in the previous month and was within the BSP’s expected range of 1.9-2.7 percent for the month. The resulting year-to-date average inflation rate of 2.5 percent was within the Government’s target range of 3.0 percent ± 1.0 percentage point for the year. Meanwhile, core inflation—which excludes selected volatile food and energy items to measure underlying price …

The BSP releases the Enhanced Report on the Philippine Financial System for the Second Semester of 2019.[1] The Report highlights the capability of the Philippine financial system, with banking system at the core, to withstand external vulnerabilities such as the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Existing prudential reforms guided the BSP-supervised financial institutions (BSFIs) to maintain sufficient cushion in times of …

The Monetary Board approved prudential measures to assist the micro-, small- and medium enterprise (MSME) sector carry on with its business during the corona virus disease (COVID-19) crisis, as well as hasten recovery and sustainability of MSME operations in the post-crisis period.  The MSME sector is a vital component of the Philippine economy owing to its capacity to generate employment …

To kick-start the economy when the quarantine gets lifted, government plans to inject more than P30 billion in loans for companies affected by the business disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Global demand for fuel is expected to remain weak for the first half of 2020 and may recover in the second half as economies start to open up after COVID-19 pandemic, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) plans to borrow P170 billion from the domestic market by issuing government securities.

Oil languished at multi-year lows, with WTI crude close to its weakest level since 2002, as dire warnings about a virus-triggered demand shock overshadowed massive output cuts.

A big number of businesses, including micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), are planning to do rapid testing on their workers to fasttrack resumption of their operations.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and local economists expect the economy to post a deep contraction in the second quarter this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.