Jin Liqun: China’s Internationalist
12 April, 2017
Ant’s Increased MoneyGram Bid Shows Commitment to New Approach
19 April, 2017Euromoney, April 2017
There is an uncomfortable acceptance in Philippine business right now. People will tell you, conspiratorially, that they did not vote for firebrand president Rodrigo Duterte; that his extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers are abhorrent; that insulting former US president Barack Obama was unnecessary and counterproductive and that his strong-man image jars on the world stage. But here’s the thing: bank share prices are up, profits are growing and customers are happy. For all the political noise, business is good for banks in the Philippines.
“Fundamentally, there seems to be a generally positive outlook for business,” says Fabian Dee, president of Metrobank. “A lot of us are quite bullish.”
Metrobank has good reason to be. In February, it reported full-year consolidated net income for 2016 of P18.1 billion ($520 million), with fourth-quarter earnings up 3% year on year and record levels of total assets, deposits and total loans. Revenues for the year were up 16% on 2015.
Metrobank is not alone. At BDO Unibank, the biggest bank in the Philippines, net income for 2016, at P26.1 billion, was up 4.3% year on year and total resources (a term used locally for assets) by 14.5%; non-interest income shot up by 30.3% in a year. Bank of the Philippine Islands saw full-year net income climb 20.9% from 2015 to P22.05 billion, with every important metric up and non-performing loans down. And at Land Bank of the Philippines, 2016 brought double-digit growth in both assets and deposits, with net income up 2% for the year at P13.6 billion.
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