BPI Family to double business in 5 years

BPI Family Bank president Maria Cristina “Ginbee” Go

The country’s leading thrift bank BPI Family Savings plans to double its earnings, asset size, customer base, lending portfolio and deposit base in the next five years by making more inroads into the vast “unbanked” segment of the population.

“We hope to replicate our growth performance in the past five years. We’re doubling again in the next five years,” newly-installed BPI Family president Maria Cristina Go said in a press briefing on Wednesday.

This means growing the bank’s balance sheet to around P540 billion in five years from P270 billion in end-2016. This suggests building an asset size that approximates the current balance sheet of some commercial banks like China Bank and Development Bank of the Philippines.

This year, BPI Family Bank is projecting a more modest net profit growth of 10 percent over last year’s bottomline of P4.4 billion.

“We are more prudent at this time. We are reviewing our credit models because we have aggressively grown in the past and we have to make sure that we manage the risks as well,” Go said.

“Lending has its own attendant risks and we have to make sure that our credit losses are within our credit boundaries. That’s why we’re doing a lot of process improvements, streamlining and reviewing our credit models,” she said.

But over the next five years, BPI Family aims to double its net profit from the end-2016 level. This is likewise anchored on a projected doubling of the loan book to P400 billion over the same period compared to P207 billion last year.

This year alone, BPI Family expects to grow its loan book by 4-5 percent to P210 billion, deliberately curbing growth to tighten credit controls now that a national credit bureau is in place. Loan growth last year was at 15 percent, in line with industry-wide expansion.

On the funding side, deposit base is projected to double to P480 billion even on an already big base, Go said.

BPI Family also sees its customer base breaching the two-million milestone in five years, doubling the 1.1 million base at present.

“We see the growth opportunities in terms of base really to be in the personal banking, the more mass-based client which really is target client of BPI Family. That’s why for a thrift bank we want to be the (parent Bank of the Philippine Island) bank’s arm for financial inclusion among Filipino families,” Go said.

The thrift bank targets the “broad C” income segment, referring to individuals with P20,000 to P50,000 gross income monthly.

The 2013 Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas report on financial inclusion showed that only two out of 10 Filipino households have savings accounts, meant mainly to set aside money for education and emergencies.

In terms of growing its branch network, BPI Family intends to open more branches outside the National Capital Region in the years ahead. It also announced that selected branches will be open on Saturdays from 9 am to 4:30 am.

BPI Family expects to end this year with 162 branches, growing from 156 at present and 143 at end-last year. Go said while the bank was embracing digital platforms, it recognized that having physical branches to facilitate face-to-face interaction was still important especially in reaching out to the unbanked segment, which currently accounted for 70-80 percent of the population.

Go said BPI Family’s family-focused approach would contribute to greater financial inclusion by encouraging more Filipinos to adopt the habit of saving, strive for their dream business with the “Ka-Negosyo” loan or own a car or a home by tapping consumer loans.

Housing and auto loans currently account for 52 percent and 25 percent of BPI Family’s loan book, respectively.