BDO partners with 145-year old Japanese regional bank

MANILA  – Sy-led banking giant BDO Unibank Inc. signed a business alliance agreement with 145-year-old Japanese regional bank The Hyakujushi Bank Ltd. (HBL) to support Japanese firms expanding in the Philippines.

BDO is the country’s biggest lender while HBL is a leading regional bank based in the Kagawa prefecture with 32 branches, including satellite offices and commercial banking services.

In a stock exchange filing, BDO said it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Japanese lender yesterday, April 3.

This would allow BDO to provide “banking support services to Japanese business entities who are HBL customers and have existing operations or plan to build or expand their businesses in the country.”

“HBL expects to grow its roster of customers in the Philippines with new investments and business matching deals,” the filing showed.

This will be the 16th Japanese bank to partner with BDO, the filing showed.

“For the past 10 years, BDO has sealed partnerships with several Japanese Regional Banks strategically situated in various prefectures of Japan, the world’s third largest economy,” BDO said.

“HBL was incorporated in 1878 and has 60,000 corporate clients, mostly located in the industrial zones,” it added.

BDO booked a net income of P57.1 billion in 2022, which was the highest annual earnings ever attained by a local bank.

Its net profit last year jumped 33 percent, thus also surpassing its prepandemic profit of P44.2 billion.

BDO is the country’s largest bank in terms of total assets, loans, deposits and trust funds under management. INQ