Security Bank sees banner year with entry of Japan bank

Armed with P36.9 billion in fresh capital through its fresh alliance with Japanese banking giant The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. (BTMU), Security Bank Corp. hopes to have another banner year this 2016 with the acceleration of its business growth and diversification program.

After ending last year with a record-high net profit of P7.7 billion, SBC president Alfonso Salcedo Jr. said the bank has not seen any drop in corporate loan demand arising from political uncertainties.

Loans and deposit have both been growing at more than 20 percent, with the retail segment growing at a much faster pace, Salcedo said. “We would like retail to grow at double the speed of wholesale (lending),” he said in a press briefing after the bank’s annual stockholders’ meeting. To date, he noted that demand for consumer loans, particularly auto loans, had been very robust.

SBC is also on a branch expansion mode, seeking to double its distribution footprint to 500-600 branches across the country by 2020 from 262 at the end of last year. Two-thirds of the new branches would be located in the provinces while the rest would be in Metro Manila, Salcedo said.

With each branch manned by an average six people, SBC had to accelerate its training program to ensure sufficient supply of skilled manpower to run the branches, Salcedo noted.

“With our strategic partnership with BTMU, Security Bank is poised for accelerated growth in 2016 and beyond, given our bigger capital of over P90 billion and the business collaboration with BTMU. We have made the first key steps in business collaboration, among which is the creation of the alliance business segment,” SBC chair Alberto Villarosa said. “The new business segment is focused on exploring opportunities for the growth of Japanese and related businesses for Security Bank.”

Shareholders of the bank ratified Tuesday the 20-percent investment by BTMU in the bank.

Leveraging on such alliance with BTMU, which has the bulk of Japanese companies doing business in the country under its customer base, SBC is setting up shop in various export-processing zones, beginning with the recent opening of a new branch in Carmelray Industrial Park in Laguna. This is the bank’s 266th branch.

Before BTMU’s entry as a strategic investor, Salcedo said SBC was more focused on its traditional business, the Filipino-Chinese segment. “We continue to focus on that but with this BTMU partnership, we now believe that we have a competitive advantage and we do have a foot in the door to penetrate the Japanese clients,” he said, adding that the plan would be to cross-sell consumer loans to the employee base of BTMU’s rich array of Japanese clientele.

Salcedo said it was no secret that loan sharks were vastly operating in industrial zones in the absence of formal banks catering to factory workers.