The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Jerry Maglunog
With the aim of servicing more Filipinos, the state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank or LBP) has launched a massive expansion in the provinces to reach a bigger number of unbanked Filipinos.
Cebu province leads the areas where more LBP branches will open, said LBP President and Chief Executive Officer Gilda Pico.
“LBP’s focus is to open branches in the countryside. We have a proposal to open branches in Moalboal (southwest of the province) and Dalaguete (southeast),” she said.
The southern part of Cebu province has only one LBP branch, in Carcar City, said Enrique Abellana, the president of the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP).
“It’s good because if there is no branch of this bank, any local government unit can deposit money with us,” the RBAP president, a director of RB of Barili (Cebu) Inc., one of the biggest RBs in Central Visayas.
Pico aknowledged LBP only has one branch in southern Cebu but she said the bank intends to add more in the coming months as the demand for banking services grows.
Pico said many sectors of the economy can be given a chance to borrow from LBP, which was why the bank was opening more branches.
Teachers, policemen, firefighters and those engaged in agri business are most welcome to avail themselves of loans from the bank, she said.
Pico also clarified it can offer loans to any profession, not just to farmers like most competitors think, as its license is a universal bank.
It has been providing loans to teachers for over two decades now with interest of 12 percent per annum.
Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, the bank’s chairman, and Education Secretary Armin Luistro are on the verge of agreeing to bring down the interest for the loan program to teachers to just 10.5 percent per annum.
Catherine Villanueva, head of the corporate communications of LBP, said the bank’s good revenues led it to remit half of the amount to the national coffers. The bank has around P900 billion in assets, the fourth biggest behind Banco de Oro, Metrobank and Bank of the Philippine Islands.
It specifically intensified its aim to open more branches in Cebu province, citing huge demands from the people there.
Three LBP branches in Cebu City are found in Cebu-Osmena, Cebu Plaza independencia and Cebu capitol. The rest are in near and far-flung municipalities of the province.
At present, it has branches in Carcar City, Mandaue City, Lapu-Lapu City, Bogo, Banilad and Danao City. LBP, with a total loan portfolio of P419.98 billion and assets of over P800 billion, is one of the most liquid banks because of aggressive lending operations.
The bank, which is among the domestic systematically important banks (D-SIB) is one of the several banks that adhere to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s (BSP) directive to expand lending operations.
“Banks are encouraged to lend to widen credit opportunities,” Deputy Governor for Supervision and Examination Nestor Espenilla said in past interviews.Aside from being the fourth-biggest unibank in assets, it is also one of the biggest government-owned and -controlled corporations in the Philippines.
LBP has an extensive rural branch network with 347 branches and 1,328 automated teller machines (ATMs). It services many rural-sector clients in areas where banking is either limited to rural banks or is non-existent. LBP was established on August 8, 1963, as part of the Agricultural Land Reform Code program of land reform in the Philippines.