Banking & Finance

State-owned Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) seeks to expand its presence in the retail banking segment by targeting one million new depositors in the next five years, DBP President and Chief Executive Officer Cecilia Borromeo said.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is confident of within-target inflation in the near term after the December 2017 inflation was steady at 3.3 percent, bringing the average rate this year to 3.2 percent.

Credit watchdog Moody’s Investors Service said the Asian Liquidity Stress Indicator (Asian LSI), which measures the strength of financial system in the region, decreased in November 2017 to 26.4 percent from 27.6 percent in October.

Telecom giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) financial technology unit FINTQ and affiliate Smart’s Voyager Innovations are targeting to include 30 million Filipinos into the financial system by 2020 through a project in collaboration with the Liga ng mga Barangay (Liga), the association of local government units with the largest membership representing barangays nationwide.

The regulator Governance Commission for Government –owned and/or –controlled corporations (GCG) and the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) gave the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) the highest score in the Corporate Governance Scorecard for GOCCs for 2016.

By Riza Lozada Universal bank BDO Unibank Inc. is pioneering the issuance of so-called green bonds after re- cently raising $150 million from process.

By Riza Lozada The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was awarded as the sole FOI Champion agency for its outstanding commitment in ensuring transparency in public service in the recently concluded 2017 Freedom of Information (FOI) annual awards. Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno along with Undersecretary Lilia Guillermo, received the award in behalf of the agency during the recognition ceremony …

State-owned Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) was recently presented with an award of excellence by the Governance Commission for GOCCs and the Institute of Corporate Directors for achieving one of the highest scores on the Corporate Governance Scorecard (CGS) for government-owned and controlled corporations.

Commercial bank Philippine National Bank (PNB), which has 600 branches nationwide, will double its loan window facility in Southern Mindanao next year to provide more small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) access to financing.

The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Land Bank of the Philippines (Land Bank) recently relaunched the Consolidation Program for Rural Banks (CPRB) that would take effect from October 26, 2017 up to October 26, 2019.