Robinsons Savings Bank aiming to be among top 10 commercial banks

MANILA, Philippines - Robinsons Savings Bank, the banking arm of the Gokongwei owned JG Summit Holdings Inc., is aiming to be among the top 10 commercial banks in the country through acquisitions and organic growth.

On the sidelines of JG Summit’s annual stockholders’ meeting late Monday, company president and chief operating officer Lance Gokongwei said the group is bent on expanding its banking operations as it positions itself for further business growth in anticipation of an uptick in the economy.

“There’s a lot of demand for financial products. The next five years will be spent on building management scale. Our intention is to build a solid platform for growth. We definitely want to grow into a much larger bank organically and through acquisitions,” Gokongwei said.

He said Robinsons Savings is awaiting the approval of the regulatory authorities approval of its merger with Royal Bank of Scotland Phils. Inc. (RBS), the local commercial banking unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.

The acquisition of RBS and its commercial banking license will pave the way for the upgrading of Robinsons Bank’s operations from thrift banking to commercial banking.

Although RBS has a small commercial bank presence in the country, it had acquired the license and remaining assets of another foreign bank, ABN Amro Bank. The Philippine unit has about P5.1 billion worth of resources and P2.9 billion in stockholders’ equity.

Gokongwei said the merged entity will have total assets of P20 billion, making it the country’s largest commercial bank.

He said JG Summit is looking to expand the share of its banking business to total groupwide earnings to 10 percent from the current contribution of two percent. “We’re hoping we could grow this figure to 10 percent in the next 10 years,” Gokongwei said.

JG Summit completed its acquisition of RBS last May 6, allowing the Gokongwei Group to compete aggressively in the highly-competitive banking industry.

Robinsons Savings ended the first quarter of the year with a network of 53 branches. Last year, it had total assets of P16.9 billion, deposit base of P14.1 billion, and loan portfolio of P8.2 billion.

Robinsons Savings offers remittance service, microfinance and motorcycle loans.

The Gokongweis and the Lopez family were the major shareholders of the Philippine Commercial International (PCI) Bank which was sold in the 1990s to the consortium of Equitable Banking Corp. and pension funds managers Government Service Insurance System and Social Security System.

Equitable and PCI Bank merged and became Equitable PCI Bank, which eventually was acquired by retail magnate Henry Sy’s Banco de Oro in 2007.