BDO moves to widen Japanese clients base

The country’s leading lender, Banco de Oro Unibank, has formed a banking alliance with Japan’s 10th largest bank, Shizuoka Bank Ltd., in a bid to widen its Japanese client base.

Based on a memorandum of understanding signed between by the two banks Wednesday, BDO would service the banking requirements of the latter’s Japanese clients that would expand operations in the Philippines.

Shizuoka sees some of its small and medium enterprise (SME) clients interested in investing in the Philippines. Given BDO’s strong foothold across all markets, Shizuoka believes the Sy family-led BDO “has the strongest capability to provide its clients the products and services suitable to their needs,” BDO told the Philippine Stock Exchange in a disclosure Wednesday.

Shizuoka is the 10th Japanese bank to team up with BDO to date. Other banks like Aozora Bank have set up alliances independently while others have aligned under the banner of Japan Bank for International Cooperation.

In Japan, Shizuoka operates 174 branches and 25 sub-branches while it has three overseas branches located in Los Angeles, New York and Hong Kong. It also has two representative offices in Shanghai and Singapore and as a subsidiary in Brussels.

In the meantime, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a plan of BDO Unibank to fold its two dormant thrift bank subsidiaries into investment house BDO Capital and Investment Corp.

The merger is part of continuing efforts to enhance group-wide operating efficiency and simplify corporate structure.

BDO said the SEC had approved the merger of BDO Capital, BDO Elite Savings Bank Inc. and Banco De Oro Savings Bank Inc.  The two dormant subsidiaries have P1.68 billion in combined assets which will be consolidated into BDO Capital.

BDO Capital, one of the most active investment houses in the country, will be the surviving corporation in this merger transaction.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas earlier approved the revocation of the authority of BDO Savings Bank—formerly Citibank Savings—to operate as a thrift bank and to conduct trust and fiduciary business.  The license was revoked on May 16, 2016.

Giving up the banking and trust licenses of BDO Savings Bank was part of BDO’s streamlining initiatives since the former had become an inactive subsidiary.  This was alongside the plan to merge the unit into BDO Capital.

The savings bank’s banking business had been integrated with the parent bank in August 2014 but it remains a subsidiary with a separate legal entity and assets of P866 million as of end-2015.