Inched out
BPIS ANNOUNCEMENT was made at a time when it would slide to third from its current position as the country’s second largest financial institution, having a P473.24-billion net asset.
The slide would occur anytime in the next few weeks as regulators gave the green light for the merger of Equitable-PCI Bank Inc. and Banco de Oro Universal Bank, currently ranked fourth and fifth largest in the country, respectively.
The two banks, which will carry the name Banco de Oro-EPCI Inc., will have a combined net asset of P607.87 billion, according to its published statement of condition as of December 29, 2006.
The merged entities would dislodge Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank) from its top position, having a net asset of P536.61 billion.
But when BPI starts its London operations, it would be competing head on not with these two banks but with PNB, now majority-owned by tobacco tycoon Lucio Tan.
PNB has been operating a branch in London since 1976. This was later renamed to PNB Europe PLC, which also has a full banking license. Other than handling remittances, PNB’s subsidiary is engaged in export-import financing and corporate and consumer lending.
PNB has 64 remittance centers, including 39 in 11 US states, nine in HK and eight in Canada. It also has 30 bank branches in several countries, with concentration of operations in the US and Canada.
BPI, however, already showed signs it means business, especially in capturing gains from the US$8-billion average annual remittance, when it dislodged PNB in 2005 from the latters top position in the global money-sending market.
PNB, the countrys sixth largest bank, lost the initiative last year to BPI when it captured only US$2.2 billion or about 20 percent of the remittance market compared to BPIs claim of having managed US$3.2 billion (about 22 to 23 percent market share) in money flow.
BPI has been expanding its business aside from the overseas Filipino market, knowing that many of them are already sharing a market that can shrink and grow anytime.
Last year, it opened its Rome-Vittorio Emanuel office, its fourth remittance center in Italy, in order to handle the remittance transactions of Chinese nationals in that country.
“This office raised Italy’s remittance performance by almost 300 percent from the previous year,” BPI claimed in its 2006 annual report without citing specific figures.
Largesse
THE Philippines is the world third largest recipient of remittances, after India and Mexico. Last year, $12.3 billion were sent to the country, or about 10 percent of the gross domestic product.
BPI said it would mainly target the OFWs in the UK, which last year remitted $561.67 million, or about a third of the entire remittances from land-based Filipino workers for Europe, according to data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Stock estimates data from the government Commission on Filipinos Overseas for 2005 cites that the UK is home to some 52,977 immigrants from the Philippines.
CFO also estimates there are 72,638 temporary contract workers and 7,480 undocumented migrants for a total of 133,095 Filipinos in that European country. That same year’s estimates showed there are 211,351 immigrants, 523,442 contract workers and 123,282 undocumented migrants, or a total of 858,075 Filipinos in Europe.
Operating in that continent, even with remittance alone, could be profitable for a bank.
For instance, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.’s Rome, Italy-based remittance center RCBC Telemoney Europe SpA. reported a net income of 162,300 (or about P10.47 million or US$220,589) from operations in three major cities.
With a full-service branch, BPI could also offer its other products even before a Filipino leaves for work in Europe.
According to Montinola, they could also offer OFWs other products like a housing loan or the unit investment trust fund aside from a savings account.
“We usually don’t make comments on what we think will happen because numbers are just numbers. We will try to expand first our share and our reach, he said.
More or less, say, in the first three years of operation, we would sort of navigate our way in figuring how things would turn out,” he said.
He, however, added that the ultimate plan was to have its other branches at the rest of Europe but “probably that will be between 2008 and 2009.”
Pinoy Life Abroad
