BSP to conduct corporate financial trends survey in Q3

MANILA, Philippines — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will conduct its fourth Corporate Financial Trends Survey (CFTS) in the third quarter as it aims to better understand the financial conditions of non-financial firms.

In a statement yesterday, the BSP said it would gather data on firm-level borrowing activity, profitability, liquidity and solvency conditions as well as funding structure and usage among non-financial corporations (NFCs).

“The analysis of CFTS data will aid the BSP in assessing the health of the corporate sector, which will guide the BSP in promoting financial stability toward a sustainable Philippine economy,” the BSP said.

It also said the data collected from individual corporate respondents would not be made available to any person or entity outside the BSP. Data collected will only be used for research and policy formulation purposes.

The CFTS is an annual survey conducted by the central bank during the third quarter of each year. It is a statistical initiative of the BSP designed to provide a better understanding of the NFC sector. It does not include banks and non-bank financial institutions.

By gathering more granular key corporate financial data, the CFTS is essential to the formulation of sound, responsive and well-informed monetary and regulatory policies.

All firms belonging to the NFC sector are highly encouraged to participate in the CFTS.

“As with all BSP-released statistics, the survey results will be published only in aggregate form to safeguard potentially sensitive corporate information shared by respondents,” the central bank said.

The survey initiative was reviewed and cleared by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) last week.

According to the PSA, the statistical activity will utilize a total budget of P100,000. The 4th CFTS will collect data from 310 enterprises, including 176 MSMEs and 134 large enterprises.

Questionnaires will be distributed and collected from July to August. The survey results are expected to be released to respondents in October.