MANILA -Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) has countered a claim that it has ‘failed in its mandate’ with a report on its outstanding loans to the agriculture sector reaching P271.8 billion as of March 2023.
The amount represents a 14.8-percent year-on-year growth, with P42.3 billion of the loans directly benefitting small farmers and fishers nationwide, its said in a statement.
Landbank has remained faithful to its social mandate of promoting inclusive and sustainable development, primarily by being the biggest credit provider to the agriculture sector reaching all components of the agriculture value chain.
The bank’s total agriculture loan portfolio has sustained its upward trajectory with an average growth rate of 10.4 percent from 2012 to 2022, even as the agriculture sector grew sideways by an average of 0.64 percent in the same period.
As the financial intermediary of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), the bank said it had inspected and valued 1.6 million hectares of private agricultural lands distributed by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to 958,623 Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs), with 90,995 landowners compensated amounting to P81.7 billion. The bank has also extended P2.7 billion in loans to 2,356 individual ARBs and 469 ARB cooperatives and farmers’ associations nationwide.
Financial leader, digital enabler
Landbank recorded a net income of P10.8 billion in the first quarter of the year, buoyed by higher revenue and lower operating costs. Its assets and capital expanded year-on-year, while financial ratios likewise remain at healthy levels.
As the country’s largest GOCC, Landbank has the financial capacity and resources, and experience to support the national government’s development agenda. It is also supportive of strategic measures to promote greater operational efficiency, cost savings and stronger fiscal position to service the country’s development needs.
According to Landbank, it is the only state-run bank that has continued to ramp-up its digitalization drive geared towards providing safe, accessible and convenient banking service to meet the growing needs of customers, with a 30-percent growth in value of transactions to P735.95 billion for its major digital banking platforms in the first quarter of 2023 alone.
Landbank supports public and private partners to adopt digital payments for disbursements and collections. It has so far onboarded 890 government merchants and 346 private entities in the Landbank Link.BizPortal payment platform as of end-March 2023.
It is also the only government entity that offers an online ordering platform for bond issuances of the government, most recently the Retail Treasury Bonds Tranche 29 (RTB-29) of the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), the bank said.
Development partner of LGUs, NGAs
The bank has maintained its dominance as the biggest development partner of the local government units (LGU) sector toward local development, with all 1,717 LGUs nationwide maintaining deposit accounts with it. As of March 31, 2023, Landbank’s outstanding loans to LGUs nationwide have reached P94.5 billion.
A majority of national government agencies (NGAs) and other government-owned and controlled corporation (GOCCs) also have Landbank as their major depository bank, which also services their collection and disbursement requirements through the On-line National Collection System.
It facilitates the collection of taxes for the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and of tariffs and duties for the Bureau of Customs (BOC), while servicing the payroll and grants of public partners and pensioners, respectively.
Extensive network
Landbank said it is the only bank present in all 82 provinces of the country, providing products and services even in remote communities. Bank touchpoints are composed of 607 branches and branch-lite units, 58 lending centers, 2,906 ATMs, 224 CDMs, and 1,751 Agent Banking Partners POS cash-out terminals. Clients may also access 2,391 PAPI ATMs located in 7-Eleven stores nationwide.
Distribution arm of social protection programs
Landbank, it says, also serves as the main distribution arm of the national government’s social protection programs, including the delivery of cash grant to the 9.9 million beneficiaries of the country’s Conditional and Unconditional Cash Transfer programs.
It has also provided assistance to various sectors of the economy affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, delivering social amelioration support to displaced workers, small businesses, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), and PUV drivers and operators.