Maybank upbeat on PH unit’s prospects

Maybank Philippines has a rosy outlook for this year as past investments, which helped drive profits to record heights in 2014, continue to pay off.

Last year, Maybank Philippines booked a record profit of P1.01 billion, more than double the 2013 net of P409 million, data released on Wednesday showed. The bank’s chief said 2014’s net income might be hard to top due to one-off gains, but added he was confident the business would continue growing.

The bank’s performance came at a time of crashing profits for the industry, as many institutions that relied heavily on their treasuries to make money were battered by volatile financial market conditions.

“Our group, it’s really an old-fashioned intermediation bank. Our business model is to get high-quality deposits and deploy them to high-yielding assets,” Maybank Philippines president Herminio Famatigan Jr. told reporters on Wednesday.

From core operations, the bank’s profits were driven by the 44-percent expansion of its consumer lending business. Commercial loans rose by 24 percent.

Car loans made up the bulk of the bank’s consumer business. Famatigan said the company was keen on growing its credit card consumer base, as well as increasing mortgages to further improve margins.

One-off gains from years of loan loss reserves that the bank was able to deduct from its tax payments also contributed to the record bottom line.

Maybank Philippines, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Maybank Group, was also able to bring interest costs down by 4 percent this year, despite growing its deposit base by 20 percent. Paolo G. Montecillo