PDCP Bank creates senior advisory board for IT project

Metro Pacific's banking arm, PDCP Bank, has strengthened its core of advisers with the creation of a senior board that would direct the bank's new thrust towards the information technology (IT) age.

PDCP Bank president and CEO Carlos Pedrosa said a four-member senior advisory board would help oversee the bank's restructuring and repositioning into an electronic banking-focused financial institution, preparing to shift beyond traditional banking services and create income-generating products serving new market needs.

Leading the new senior board are MPC executives Napoleon Nazareno and Albert del Rosario, both plucked from the bank's board of directors to assume a greater role in the bank's transformation. Nazareno is concurrent president and CEO of telecom firms Smart Communications and Pilipino Telephone Corp. while Del Rosario chairs the executive committee of MPC.

Joining them are management guru and SGV co-founder Washington Sycip and the Asian Institute of Management's Capt. Roberto Lim, who used to manage Philippine Airlines.

Meanwhile, the vacuum in the regular board was filled up by Augusto Lagman, president of the Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines; Mariano Galicia, senior vice president of Fort Bonifacio Development Corp. and Peace Institute advocate Gaston Ortigas.

Although the bank will not necessarily transform itself into an internet company, its frontline services will be heavily focused on the use of information technology to distinguish itself as the country's first integrated online banking network. It has even proposed the change in its corporate name to E-Business Bank, or such other name its shareholders will eventually decide on by May this year when they hold their annual stockholders meeting.

Last year, PDCP Bank suffered a net loss of about P1 billion due to its prudent lending, additional loan-loss provisioning and other measures to clean up its balance sheet, as well as an industry wide drop in lending rates.

However, it is readying for an increase in its capital base by P2.5 billion through the equity infusion of MPC, which owns 36 percent of the bank. In 1999, PDCP Bank introduced several new deposit products and services which were electronically-based such as Savings Supreme, Privilege Checking and CashNet, resulting in an increase in its deposit level to P10.435 billion.

Toward year-end, it tied up with PLDT for the launch of an Internet-based payment system and rolled out its first mobile phone banking services, the first of its kind in the country, in cooperation with Smart.