PH banks’ resources expand to P17.3T

Amid a growing economy, the total resources of the Philippine financial system further expanded to P17.303 trillion at the end of the first quarter.

The latest Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data showed that the combined resources of banks and nonbanks, excluding the BSP, as of end-March inched up by about 1 percent from P17.136 billion at end-2016.

Compared with the year-ago level, the financial system’s resources jumped by over a tenth from P15.67 trillion.

The economy was expected by the country’s chief economist to have grown by about 7 percent during the first three months. The government will announce the country’s first-quarter economic performance on Thursday.

Total bank resources increased to P14.081 trillion at end-March from P13.914 trillion a quarter ago and P12.53 trillion a year ago.

End-March resources of universal and commercial banks rose to P12.72 trillion from P12.561 trillion in the previous quarter and P11.255 trillion last year.

As for thrift banks, resources grew to P1.129 trillion from P1.122 trillion a quarter ago and P1.055 trillion a year ago.

Rural banks’ resources, meanwhile, were steady quarter-on-quarter at P231.7 billion, even as it grew year-on-year from P220 billion as of March last year.

Nonbanks, meanwhile, saw their end-March resources remain at P3.222 trillion, the same as end-2016, although higher than last year’s P3.14 trillion.

The nonbank institutions covered by the BSP data included investment houses, finance companies, investment firms, securities dealers and brokers, pawnshops, lending investors, nonstock savings and loan associations, venture capital corporations, BSP-supervised credit card companies as well as public and private insurance firms such as the state-run pension funds Government Service Insurance System and the Social Security System.