BPI’s home, auto loans seen to grow 16% this year

The Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI) sees a 16-percent growth in its home and auto loans this year, slightly lower than its 20-percent target, a BPI official said yesterday.

BPI senior vice president David Sarmiento said they expect to remain competitive in pricing and rates for both housing and auto loans.

On the other hand, the credit card business of the BPI group is expected to improve with billings going as high as P12 billion this year from only P7.5 billion last year.

BPI executive vice president Aurelio Montinola III said they expect to complete their merger with Far East Bank and Trust Co. this year.

"So far, we are 90 percent complete in our integration process. Within the year, we hope to finalize the merger," Montinola said.

Montinola admitted that the merger between BPI and FEBTC brought "pain" for both banks. But, he said they expect to finalize all of these merger processes soon.

"It is really difficult to do business right now, but we are doing a lot of internal cleaning to focus on making banking more convenient. We expect to offer new products next year based on the so-called New Economy," he said.

In line with this, he said they expect to put up more Internet banking kiosks nationwide. This year, they have put up 75 kiosks.

Among the other Internet initiatives of the BPI group are: the BPI Direct Savings Bank, BPI Express Online, BPI Express Link and BPI Trade.

BPI Direct Savings is the first phone and Internet bank in the Philippines and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BPI.

BPI Express Online, on the other hand, is a transaction platform catering to the existing clients of BPI and BPI Family Bank.

Internet-based BPI Express link, meanwhile, offers for the bank’s corporate clients through the computers.

BPI Trade is the bank’s Internet stock trading platform which allows customer, both here and abroad, to access the Philippines Stock Exchange.