BPI eyes 34 new branches in 2012

MANILA, Philippines - Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) plans to open 34 new branches this year to add to its existing combined branch network of 819, a top bank official said.

BPI senior vice president and consumer banking group Natividad N. Alejo said they have applied for five branch licenses with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), and would like to complete the rollout by the end of the year.

Of the total 34 branches, 24 will be allocated to the branch network of BPI Family Savings and the remaining 10 for BPI, the universal bank. 

Also involved in the expansion program are 10 kiosks to be converted into full branches. Those kiosks located in the malls and shopping areas will likely be retained while the rest will be redeployed as full branches.

Also to be deployed are the CTAs, which will be deployed in all its branches.

CTA is the electronic machine situated inside BPI branches, which reduces over-the-counter transactions. 

Alejo said that 300 BPI branches already play host to CTAs, which reduces human intervention and teller time by 30 percent, and the use of forms. 

E-banking includes among others automated teller machine (ATM), customer transaction account (CTA), telephone banking, Internet banking, and mobile banking.

Transactions generally undertaken through e-banking are funds transfer, bills payments, airtime load for mobile phone, and balance inquiry.

BPI has also rolled out 100 cash-accepting ATM machines. 

BPI president and chief executive officer Aurelio Luis R. Montinola III said the universal bank of the Ayala Group will also be doing some branch rotation for BPI Family Savings branches. 

“We will look at the tourism side for the deployments, aside from geographic issues,” Montinola added. 

He said BPI has committed to go to places where the Department of Tourism feels are unserved or under served by financial institutions. “We asked to just show us the way.” 

BPI also plans to increase the number of ATMs and point-of-sale (POS) terminals to make banking especially access to cash and credit, “extremely accessible.” 

Normally, a bank branch has one ATM unit within its premises. But in some cases where the transaction traffic is extremely heavy, two ATM units are deployed.

There are also offsite ATM units that may be deployed in high traffic areas like malls and terminals. 

“We will be deploying offsite ATMs especially in tourism-oriented areas such as Boracay and Bohol. In fact, we have several offsite and onsite ATMs in the beach area and the peripheral areas in Boracay,” Emmanuel G. Herbosa, BPI executive vice president, said. 

At the start of 2012, BPI has 815 branches located within the Philippines. It operates four overseas-based branches in Hong Kong and Europe. 

It has a customer base of five million, which is targeted to expand by another one million. 

It likewise operates 15 business centers, 20 remittance centers, and 1,868 ATMs.

These are complemented by alternative channels such as the Internet, mobile banking, call center, partner outlets (in the case of Globe BAnKO), as well as remittance partners.