Security Bank to open 10 more branches in VisMin

CEBU, Philippines - Publicly-listed Security Bank Corporation has announced to open 10 more branches in Visayas and Mindanao this year, apart from its aggressive branch expansion in Luzon.

Security Bank president and chief executive officer (CEO) Alberto S. Villarosa said in an interview that this move is to take advantage of the vibrant economic prospects in the country as a whole, specifically in the regional areas.

Following its acquisition of Premier Bank in Luzon, the universal bank automatically totaled its branch network to 170, apart from its planned new branches opening before the year ends.

Villarosa said because of the healthy financial environment in the country, the banking sector faces challenging competitive landscape saying “Now is the time that banking players have to ‘separate the men from the boys.’”

The banking market in the country has now reached to its high sophistication level, wherein a lot of options, and attractive products offered to them, now the battle is making “a step ahead” with each other, Villarosa said.

Understanding each customer is now the “name of the game” in the banking industry, Villarosa said thus Security Bank is putting its nerve ahead of the competition.

The bank will spend as least P100 million in each new branch that will be opened. In the Visayas and Mindanao alone, Security Bank will spend P1 billion for the planned 10 new branches that will be inaugurated before the year ends.

In the first quarter 2011, Security Bank posted an 8.5 percent net income growth generating P1.01 billion.

The bank’s 2010 net income posted at P7.1 billion which represents a 134 percent increase from previous year, translating to industry-best 34.6 percent Return on Equity (ROE) for the year 2010.

The bank’s balance sheet grew 13.8 percent to P166.5 billion with a 6.6 percent increase in its loan portfolio.   The major component of the impressive income performance was due to trading gains resulting from timely recalibration of our fixed income portfolios with focus on lowering durations to more liquid issues. This allowed the bank significantly greater flexibility in managing the interest rate risk in SECB’s investment securities portfolio.

“We are truly proud of these accomplishments for two reasons. First, it illustrated the vibrant and collaborative effort between our line and support functions. Secondly, it was critical to capitalize on a very limited window of bullish opportunity in the market. As a result, we were able to realize close to P4.0 billion in securities trading gains in the last quarter of the year,” said Villarosa.

The bank also posted impressive asset quality levels with Non-Perfoming Loans (NPL) ratio of 1.1 percent, with absolute NPLs below P 1 billion, and with NPL cover unmatched at 319 percent. 

Villarosa, together with the top executives of Security Bank was in Cebu recently to grace its client’s and partners’ appreciation night and first board meeting here. — THE FREEMAN