EastWest to offer deposit notes

Gotianun-led East West Bank is raising as much as P10 billion from a fresh offering of high-yielding deposit notes this year.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday, East West said it had obtained approval from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to issue up to P10 billion in long-term negotiable certificate of deposits (LTNCD).

“The planned LTNCD issuance is part of our funding plan for our planned loan and investment expansion while diversifying our deposit structure,” East West president Antonio Moncupa Jr. said in a text message.

“It will also result in a better term matching of East West’s assets and liability matching and gives more alternative investments to our customers,” he added.

LTNCDs are time deposits that have longer maturity and are higher yielding than regular deposits. These instruments are negotiable and insured with Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. up to the maximum coverage, currently at P500,000 per depositor.

Moncupa said the LTNCD would likely be done through a continuing issuance in which the LTNCDs would be issued depending on market demand.  Typically, he said the entire budget would be taken up within six months.

For this issuance, he said East West had mandated investment house Unicapital Inc. as arranger. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla