Banking & Finance

The thrift bank of state pension fund Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), GSIS Family Bank, was shut down and placed under the receivership of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) receivership last Friday.

The Philippine National Bank (PNB) is reviewing the financial profiles of rural banks (RBs) for a possible acquisition.

By Jerry Maglunog Nearly 90 percent of goods bought with credit cards are consumer items, making the local economy household lending-driven.

The demand for the lifting of the bank-secrecy law because of recent allegations that it is being used to conceal unexplained wealth may have a backlash on efforts of the country to attract more investments, bankers said.

By Riza Lozada and Jerry Maglunog The series of cases of breach in the security of bank accounts has alarmed banks and their depositors, prompting top lender Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank) to issue an assurance and advisory to its clients and shareholders that the bank has “sufficient maker-checker controls in place.”

By Jerry Maglunog  The Philippines has only 7 million credit-card holders, almost a third of whom own cards issued by the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank).

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) maintained its key policy rates, saying last Friday that economic indicators continue to remain appropriate, even as average inflation in the first quarter of 2016 remains below the government’s target of two percent to four percent growth. 

Sy-led Banco de Oro Unibank Inc. (BDO) is targeting a 4 percent rise in net income this year to P26 billion, to be buoyed by the strength of the domestic economy, as well as core businesses, namely deposits and loans. 

By Jerry Maglunog In the late 1980s, there were about 1,200 rural banks that provided credit in the countryside. It was the heyday of the rural-bank industry when fewer than 200 of them had assets of close to P1 billion.

Commercial banks, as well as their credit-card affiliates, report very high consumer lending, showing an increasing number of Filipinos spending more as a result of a robust economy.