Metrobank rolls out 3 more trust funds

MANILA, Philippines - The trust department of Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank) will be launching three new unit investment trust funds (UITFs) within the year to bring its total UITF plantilla to 11 funds.

The first two new UITFs will be peso-denominated equity funds while the third fund will be a dollar-denominated equity fund.

Metrobank trust officer Josefina Tiangco Tuplano said 2014 would see the refinement and completion of all back-end operations, and an efficient front-end operation system as well as an online platform for all investors by next year.

However, trust officers and fund managers are concerned over the political volatility brought about by issues on the disbursement acceleration program (DAP), the negative impact of the truck ban on the country’s manufacturing and distribution system, and other external issues such as the Middle East and Russia military conflicts.

Tuplano said investors still face a very volatile and unsettling atmosphere due to the prevailing low interest rate environment.

That has prompted local and overseas fund managers to lean on the equities market.

For the local bourse, the bullish outlook is that the Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) will close the year between 7,000 to 7,200 levels.

But the more cautious market believes that the market will range between 6,800 to 7,000, with an occasional breach of the 7,100 level.

Metrobank has an investor base of 35,000 or roughly 24 percent (in the vicinity of P100 billion) of the UITF market share.

In fact, 80 percent of total UITFs were generated from the Metro Manila market.

Metrobank’s total trust assets under management (AUMs), including investment management accounts (IMA) and UITFs of Metrobank amount to P335 billion as of early July this year with roughly 30 percent accounted for by UITFs.

For 2013, total trust assets reached P330 billion of which UITFs were worth P112 billion, or several times over from the P21.6 billion in the 2012.Active UITFs managed by the trust department of Metrobank are: the peso fixed income funds (Metro Money Market Fund; Metro Max-3 Bond Fund; Metro Max-5 Bond Fund); Balanced and equity funds (Metro Balanced Fund; Metro Equity Fund); dollar fixed income (Metro Money Market Fund; Metro Max-3 Bond Fund; Metro Max-5 Bond Fund).

Minimum initial maintaining balance for peso fixed income is P50,000 with minimum additional placements of P25,000.

For the equity and balanced funds, the minimum initial placement is P25,000 with the succeeding minimum placements are P25,000.

For the dollar fixed income the minimum initial placement is $2,000 and the succeeding minimum placements are $1,000.