BPI sees 20% growth in corporate lending

MANILA, Philippines - Ayala-controlled Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) expects its corporate banking business to grow more than 20 percent this year, a ranking bank official said.

BPI executive vice president and corporate banking group head Alfonso Salcedo Jr. said the projected growth in corporate loans this year would be at about the same level as in 2013.

“We saw a very strong growth in 2013 for corporate (business). We were north of 20 percent. The loan growth for the total industry was 16.4 percent,” he said.

He said the main drivers for last year’s growth were the major corporate loans as most of the big clients borrowed in billions to support their expansion programs.

Salcedo also noted the increase in the number of foreign investors coming into the country which sourced most of their funding needs from the bank.

For one, he said loan growth from Japanese and ecozone locators reached more than 30 percent in 2013, on top of other investors from the US and Korea.

He said last year’s loan growth from the ecozones was outstanding as this industry grew only about 20 percent over the past years or before 2013, when it recorded over 30 percent.

Of the total BPI corporate loan portfolio of P460 billion in 2013, about P15 billion, he said, was accounted for  by Japanese clients, higher than the P10 billion in 2012.

Salcedo said loan growth in the corporate side would be sustained if not surpassed as Philippine economy would remain strong this year.