AUB income up 30 %

The Asia United Bank (AUB) expanded its net income by 30 percent in the first seven months of 2003, or from P396 million in the same period in 2002 to P516 million.

It could have been bigger except the bank continued to provide for possible losses as part of its prudent risk management thus bringing its after tax and provisioning income to P319 million.

"Nonetheless, it still registered a healthy 13.3-percent return on equity," said bank vice president Ferdinance G. La Chica.

Total assets stood at P16.5 billion or a 34- percent increase from the previous period last year.

Non-performing loan (NPL) ratio remained among the lowest in the industry at 8.7 percent versus the industry average of over 15 percent.

La Chica said that two new branches has been opened in Angeles City in Pampanga and another in Alabang. It will open three more to be located in Iloilo City, Rufino St. in Makati and another in Cagayan de Oro City.

That addition should bring to a total 26 branches for AUB of which 17 are located in Metro Manila and the remaining nine in critical provincial areas, including Cebu and Davao.

Meanwhile, AUB launched bundled financial services for finance and human resources managers recently to help them off-load some of their administrative tasks and increase their companies‚ operational efficiency. – TPT

AUB’s preferred corporate solutions is the umbrella of special banking facilities that addresses a company’s payroll, salary loan and even SSS remittance requirements. It is comprised of three value-added services, namely preferred payroll plus, preferred salary loan, and the AUB-SSS preferred online access.

The preferred payroll plus is an outsourced payroll preparation and crediting facility designed to off-load the payroll processing task of the bank’s corporate customers. The facility includes several integrated modules, which address a company‚s entire payroll processing and crediting requirements. Being an outsourced facility, all the corporate client does is to turn over its employees‚ timesheets and the bank will do the rest of the payroll processing and crediting. Among the countless benefits a company can get are increased productivity, reduced times spent in payroll processing, security and confidentiality.

Another value-added service that addresses a perennial concern of employers, particularly when it comes to beating SSS remittance and reporting deadline, is the AUB-SSS preferred online access. The facility, which provides corporate clients online access to SSS, offers significant benefits such as extended deadline in remitting payments, paperless transactions that result in reduced cost for the company, and accurate reporting and transmittal due to minimal human intervention.

In addressing the financial concerns of a company especially in enhancing its employees‚ welfare, AUB has the preferred salary loan program. It is a multi-purpose loan facility available to qualified employees of accredited companies. With this loan facility, an accredited company can now offer salary loan benefits to its employees without tying up its resources. Employees can borrow a minimum of P10,000 up to a maximum of P300,000 payable within six months up to 36 months. – TPT