EastWest takes over retail business of StanChart

MANILA, Philippines - Listed East West Banking Corp. is taking over the credit cards, personal loans, wealth management and retail deposits businesses of Standard Chartered Bank.

The bank owned by the late Andrew Gotianun is acquiring Price Solutions Philippines Inc. (PSPI) through the purchase of 9.23 million shares from SCMB Overseas Ltd.

PSPI provides sales and marketing services to Standard Chartered Bank Philippine branch for credit cards and personal lending products.

Likewise, EastWest is also acquiring nine million shares of Assurance Solutions Insurance Agency Inc. (ASIA) that provides sales and marketing services directed exclusively Standard Chartered Bank clients for bancassurance products.

The final acquisition price for both PSPI and ASIA would be based on the net asset value of shares as of the last accounts of both units of Standard Chartered Bank.

EastWest president and chief executive officer Antonio Moncupa Jr. said the bank has been building scale and exploring growth opportunities particularly in the retail and consumer segments.

“We are very pleased to have been chosen by Standard Chartered Philippines as its counterparty in this agreement. We expect this agreement to be value accretive as we further enhance our retail and consumer banking scale,” he said.

Moncupa said EastWest is looking forward to future opportunities to assist Standard Chartered in serving the retail banking needs of its corporate and institutional clients.

He explained the credit cards, personal loans, wealth management and retail deposits of Standard Chartered Bank in the Philippines would be migrated to EastWest.

Moncupa said the agreement would be completed within the year subject to regulatory approvals particularly from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). The BSP’s Monetary Board has to approve the transaction.

Both EastWest and Standard Chartered Bank Philippines vowed to work closely in the coming months to collaborate on a range of retail banking opportunities and to provide a seamless transition for the retail banking clients and staff to EastWest.

Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar, chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bank Philippines, said the agreement with EastWest is aligned with the bank’s global strategy to focus on retail markets where Standard Chartered has scale.

“Standard Chartered remains fully committed to the growth of our corporate and institutional banking business in the Philippines which is a core part of our ASEAN network,” Dastidar said.

He pointed out the agreement with EastWest would allow Standard Chartered Bank to leverage on their scale and product offering to meet the retail needs of our clients.

“In the meantime, our retail banking clients will continue to have access to all of our existing banking services,” he added.

EastWest is ranked as the country’s 13th largest bank in terms of assets with P228.36 billion while Standard Chartered Bank is ranked 21st with P56.81 billion as of end-December. – With Ted Torres