Banking & Finance

The projects of a growing number of firms that are setting up business in the country will be funded via syndicated loans, as the amount needed for them is growing to a level that a sole lender cannot afford to put it up, several investment bankers have said.

Sluggish economic growth in the Asia-Pa­cific region in 2016 is a key risk for banks in the region, credit watch­dog Standard and Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) said in a report.

By Jerry Maglunog Big banks, particularly universal banks (unibanks), have a natural edge over smaller banks when it comes to lending opportunities particularly on big-ticket projects, a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) official said.

Local banks are likely to benefit in 2016 from the domestic economy’s good growth prospects, and the banks’ healthy capitalization and asset quality, a report of credit watchdog Standard and Poors Ratings Services (S&P) said. These factors underpin its stable outlook on the Philippines’s banking sector, S&P said in a report titled “The The Philippines’s Supportive Economy Underpins a Stable …

By Riza Lozada The Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank), the country’s biggest lender, reported a 20-percent increase in its core earnings, ending 2015 with a consolidated net income of P18.6 billion. The bank’s total resources stood at P1.8 trillion.

By Jerry Maglunog Banks are busy expanding their consumer-loan program, targeting the salaried sector with mostly thrift banks going head-to-head in this regard.

The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) generated a net income of P18.23 billion in 2015 from P18.04 billion the year before.

By Jerry Maglunog The Monetary Board (MB) has further opened new opportunities for banks as it lifted restrictions on them in opening up new branches or expanding to a higher banking level.

Listed Security Bank Corp. posted a record-high profit of P7.7 billion last year, which was 7 percent higher than a year ago and translating to 15.2 percent return on equity (ROE) of shareholders.

Payments by the national government of its maturing foreign debt along with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) foreign-exchange (forex) operations resulted in the drop of foreign reserves in January.