Maybank local unit expects huge capital infusion

MANILA, Philippines - Maybank Philippines Inc. expects a huge capital infusion from its Malaysian parent early next year, a top bank official said.

Maybank Philippines president and CEO Herminio Famatigan told reporters on the sidelines of the recent launching of Maybank’s Visa and Mastercard products that Malayan Banking Bhd. is now discussing terms of the capital raising scheme.

While declining to quantify the size of the infusion, Famatigan said “(it is)significant. We’re about P5.5 billion to P6 billion now. I don’t want to pre-empt the Maybank board but $50 million is significant, $100 million is significant.”

Famatican said the infusion would partly fund the bank’s compliance to the Base III requirement.

“Partly because of Basel. After our infusion before, Maybank KL has seen that the Philippines has performed really well,” he said.

But he noted that Maybank Philippines has already been compliant to Basel III.

“We are compliant with basel III but as we are looking ahead, we are growing our risk assets,” he said.

He said the new capital infusion reflects the continued confidence of the Malaysian parent company in the Philippine banking industry.

“They know the country. We have been here for 15 years. They know the good economic fundamentals and they know the people so they will put in more people,” he said.

On the credit card business, Famatigan said Maybank seeks to become a major player.

“We did not enter the credit card business to be an average player, we want to be a significant player in the market. We know it’s a mature market, everyone’s here. But you see we have a parent who’s got 2.2 million cardholders. So the technology, the way they’re thinking is being exported to us,” he said.

For her part, Maybank credit card business development head said based on their internal target, they hope to issue up to 30,000 to 40,000 credit cards by the end of the year.

But she said conservatively, they see 20,000 credit cards being issued by yearend, starting with qualified Maybank depositors.

Meanwhile, as Maybank Philippines has no plans to apply for a universal license, Famatigan said they would be focusing more on growing their consumer business.

“Our consumer business is about 48 percent of our total portfolio, composed of auto, housing, etc. As we move forward, we will change it. The bigger part of our portfolio will be the consumer segment and the rest will be corporate commercial,” he said.