BDO seen hitting P20.4-B income target

MANILA, Philippines - BDO Unibank Inc., the main banking unit of the SM Group is optimistic it could hit its income targetof P20.4 billion this year, a top bank official said.

“We think we will meet it (P20.4-billion guidance income for 2013),” BDO president Nestor Tan said.

At the same time, Tan said BDO is planning to put up 40 to 50 branches next year,particularly in underbanked areas.

He said they hope to take advantage of the lifting of the moratorium on bank branching to push their aggressive expansion plan for 2014.

“For the past years, we were held back by the bank branching moratorium but  now that it will open up, hopefully we can start our aggressive expansion next year,” he said.

For acquisitions of other banks, Tan said they intend to concentrate first newly-acquired Citibank Savings Bank.

According to Tan, BDO is also growing its business locally in preparation for the 2015 ASEAN Integration.

“(We want to focus on) local expansion. You have to have a strong local business before you can expand globally. Because for us, we don’t want to spread too thinly while our resources are not properly deployed, we still see the local market as growing. There are still underpenetrated (unbanked)areas so why go elsewhere when our local market is still strong and still offer a lot of potential for growth,” he said.

He cited based on Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data, about 80 percent of the country’s population are unbanked.

“We want to tap all sectors. According to BSP data, 80 percent of bankable is still not tapped,” he said.

BDO, the largest bank in the country, registered P18.2 billion in net income in the first three quarters of the year from P10.5 billion in the same period last year.

Gross customer loans increased 17 percent to P846.4 billion on broad-based expansion across key markets.

Total deposits accelerated 40 percent to P1.2 trillion, led by the steady growth in low-cost deposits as well as the inflow of maturing special deposit accounts (SDA) funds from the BSP.

The growth in both loans and deposits contributed to a 16 percent hike in net interest income to P31 billion.

Non-interest income stepped up 36 percent to P25.8 billion on the double-digit expansion in both fee-based income and trading and foreign exchange gains. The growth in operating expense, meanwhile, remained steady at eight percent.