BPI eyes 40% growth in remittance business

The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is eyeing a 40-percent growth in its remittance service for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) with the launch of a new remittance-related product.

Last year, BPI accounted for roughly 10 percent of the country’s total remittance market which reached a record $8.6 billion.

"We are bullish our remittance business will grow to close to a billion dollars," Reinier C. Jeongco, BPI vice president for remittance product division, said during the launching of the bank’s latest remittance-related banking product, Express Remit.

BPI is among the major players in the remittance business which is still dominated by the Philippine National Bank (PNB) and the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank).

To meet its targets, the bank is looking to expand its alliances with money transfer agents/companies and correspondent bank overseas.

BPI has 17 international branches, over 100 tie-ups with money transfer agents like Western Union and Travelex, and over 300 correspondent bank relations worldwide.

"We are looking for other partners overseas, especially expand the tie-ups with money transfer agents," Jeongco said.

Forging working alliances with money transfer agents and correspondent banks is more practical than the more expensive set up of establishing overseas branches, as money transfer agents and correspondent banks already have the international network and the expertise.

Remittance business for commercial banks is a fee-based income earner but is not a major contributor to the financial institution’s bottom line. However, it opens other business opportunities for the bank such as savings deposits, ATMs, trust funds, mutual funds, credit cards, pre-need products, consumer loans such as housing or auto, and banc assurance or life and non-life insurance products of its subsidiaries or affiliates.

For BPI, that means business for BPI and BPI Family Savings Bank, Ayala Life Assurance, Ayala Plans, and BPI Asset Management Group handling trust and mutual funds.

"What we would like to do is encourage OFWs to save. Most of the time when they come back to the Philippines, they do not have anything as they have already sent these through the formal or informal sector with little control of how the money is spent. We would like to educate the OFWs and their families or beneficiaries," the BPI official said.