Bankard raises capital to P2B

Bankard Inc., the credit card firm of the Yuchengco Group, has increased its authorized capital stock to P2 billion from P600 million.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), Bankard management accounting officer Amalia V. Ongkeko said the capital hike was authorized by the company’s board yesterday.

Stock analysts have speculated that the capital increase may be designed to "prop up" its stock for another sale bid.

Bankard, a subsidiary of RCBC Capital Corp., had entered into talks with GE Consumer Finance (GECF). Completion of the talks would have resulted in the sale of Bankard to GE Money Bank, a thrift bank under the GECF banner.

RCBC Capital is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC), the commercial banking arm of the Yuchengco Group.

However, the two parties failed to enter into an agreement after months of discussions.

Bankard is a joint issuer of MasterCard, Visa and JCB. It is ranked sixth overall among the local insurers, which are mostly commercial banks, with over 300,000 cards in force.

Last year, it registered a net loss of P422.2 million, or slightly better than the P577.4-million loss in 2004. In 2003, it posted a net income of P86 million. In the first three months of 2006, it reported a net loss of P247.