BPI thrift unit sees 30-35% profit growth

MANILA, Philippines - BPI Family Savings Bank is projecting its net income to expand 30   to 35 percent this year to P1.4 billion due to its outstanding loan and deposit portfolio growth in the first semester.

Last year, most banks posted power earnings due to poor performances in treasury and securities trading. This year, all banks are reporting gains in these income segment.

In 2008, BPI Family Savings’ total loan portfolio reached over P75 billion. In the first six months of 2009, it already breached the P80-billion mark.

BPI Family Savings president Alfonso L. Salcedo Jr. said their mortgage lending business has been doing “surprisingly well.”

The housing loan portfolio accounted for 55 percent of total consumer lending of P44 billion. It has been traditionally strong in the past years, but particularly well in the first semester period this year.

Salcedo said over 75 percent of borrowers were investors as well as end-users. “They are buyers in the P1-million and above market who acquire the real estate properties and either keep them or rent them out. These are not the speculators,” he added.

About 20 percent of the housing loans were handed out to overseas Filipinos, who were the dominant borrowers last year.

But Salcedo said there could be surprises in the auto market.

The thrift bank of the Ayala Group launched yesterday Auto Madness 2 as a sequel of its successful Auto Madness in February this year.

Auto loans in the first semester amounted to over P20 billion or a quarter of the thrift bank’s loan portfolio in that period. “We recorded an incremental sale of P1.8 billion likely attributed to Auto Madness campaign launched in February,” Salcedo said.

He added they expect still strong demand for new car sales despite the poor performance of carmakers in the first semester.

“A high single-digit growth in auto sales with the second Auto Madness is a good target, but we have a lot of work to do,” Salcedo said.