A banker’s exciting homecoming

‘BALIKBAYAN’ Veteran banker Jun Palanca, who was overseas for 22 years, is back to lead ING Philippines. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Since setting up shop in the Philippines in the 1990s, Dutch financial giant ING has made it a tradition to enlist Filipinos to run the show —a testament to its confidence in the local talent pool.

A banking veteran who earned his stripes at international banks for nearly three decades, mostly in Singapore and Hong Kong, has come back home to run the local business.

But Jun Palanca is no stranger to ING. He had spent 10 years working at this bank before and could still remember how exhilarating it was. Whether bonds, equity, merger and acquisition (M&A) or loan syndication, ING had exposed him to all the stuff he was interested in. He remembers ING being part of all the “transformational” headline-making deals. 
“It’s ING!” is thus the foremost reason why he rejoined initially as head of ING Philippines wholesale banking in May 2022, then succeeding Hans Sicat as country head by the end of last year.

“ING is very collaborative and it continues. The banking market—ING is no exception —has changed over the years … A lot more controls have been put up versus those early years when I was in Manila. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the culture,” Palanca says in an interview with Inquirer.

It’s not unusual to see people who have been with the bank for 25 or 30 years. “Obviously, they see something that they like,” he says.

While abroad in previous years, Palanca felt he wasn’t ready to join the waves of Pinoys relocating back. But now, the stars have aligned for him.

“I thought it’s a good position to be in supporting the Philippine growth through ING,” he says.

Core values

For Palanca, providing the customer with “superior” experience and championing sustainability are two of the core guiding principles of ING across its global network.

Ahead of the Paris Climate Conference in 2015, ING stopped financing new coal-fired power plants as a global policy. In 2017, it vowed to phase out coal exposure by 2025.

While helping clients transition to sustainable businesses and raise funds to boost sustainability efforts, Palanca explains how ING walks the talk.

“This building, for example, is a green building,” he says, referring to ING’s new Philippine headquarters at Arthaland Century Pacific Tower in BGC.

ING is serious about environmental, social and governance or ESG metrics, he adds. On the inclusivity agenda, he points out that gender balance prevails in the bank. Looking at its management team, he says women even outnumber men.

Outside the banking business, he notes that for the longest time, ING has supported the impoverished urban community of Baseco in Manila.

“It’s to uplift their lives through livelihood, education. We built a small schoolhouse building to help the kids, providing them scholarships, providing the tutors. We’re also doing mentorships as well,” he says.

Career path

After getting his economics degree from Ateneo de Manila, Palanca interned at the Ministry Bureau of Trade and Industry of Finland in Helsinki.

He worked at Citibank Philippines from 1993 to 1995 after finishing graduate school. In 1996, he joined ING’s project finance team. It was a busy period, particularly for energy and infrastructure. It was also the time that ING obtained a universal banking license.

At the turn of the millennium, ING assigned him to Hong Kong to boost its loan syndication team.

“That was also because in the Philippines, aside from winning many awards and the M&As, bonds and equities [deals], we were also the loan house of the year for many years. So they asked me to join the Hong Kong team to help them out in the region, and also strengthen our position in the Philippines,” he says.

After six years of working overseas at ING, he joined Merrill Lynch to set up its leveraged finance business, while also doubling as the loan syndicate guy. He likewise dabbled into the private capital business, doing highly structured deals. He later moved to Singapore to support Merrill Lynch’s growing Southeast Asian business.

After the global financial crisis of 2007 to 2008, when many institutions had lost their financial muscle, this self-confessed “deal junkie” said to himself: “Who has balance sheet? It’s the Japanese, and Sumitomo Mitsui is the most Western among the Japanese banks.” He had thought he would work there just for a few years, while waiting for other banks to regain footing. He ended up staying for 12 years.

“That’s a testament to the support I got there. They gave me so many opportunities,” he says.

He initially joined Sumitomo to help build up the structured finance business. But a few months later, he was also asked to rebuild its aviation and the export credit finance business.

In 2016, Sumitomo tasked him to strengthen its syndicate distribution business. He managed to catapult Sumitomo’s ranking in the Asia-Pacific league table from the teens to No.3 before rejoining ING.

Priority sectors

“ING actually is a pioneer, and we were were sustainability pioneers,” Palanca says with pride.

He notes how ING collaborated with health technology company Philips on an innovative sustainable deal in 2017. It was 1-billion euro loan with interest rate tied to the company’s sustainability performance and rating. ING acted as the sustainability coordinator, as part of a syndicate of 16 banks.

Closer to home, he notes that ING worked on the first Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) sustainability bond floated by RCBC in 2018, as well as the Asean green bond issuance of Arthaland Corp. and social bonds of Bank of the Philippines.

ING is also mandated to act as sustainability coordinator for other corporations.

In the Philippines, Palanca says ING has identified seven sectors to prioritize: energy, including renewables; natural resources; infrastructure; technology media and telecoms; financial institutions; food and agriculture; and transportation, logistics and real estate.

While it’s hard to say which one is the biggest in terms of deal flow, Palanca says there’s definitely a lot of action in the energy space because of the “net zero” emission challenge and the energy transition imperatives. Financial and infrastructure sectors are likewise big areas for the bank.

While ING shut down its digital banking business—its rollout was affected by the pandemic lockdowns—Palanca notes that ING had helped in shaping up local digital banking regulations.

“Whatever is needed by the market, we try to find how and what we can do to help support it and then we will work with the regulators. We will work with with the market and we’re not selfish and say we should dominate and not let anybody come in,” he says.

Moving forward, ING is focused on growing its wholesale banking business.

The Philippines has become much more interesting now that many of ING’s key clients are also looking to invest offshore, he quips. One of ING’s strengths as a European bank with global footprint, he notes, is to help businesses navigate the global markets and find new partners, opportunities and funding.

“Covering the Philippines, you see a lot of deals happening, but coming back and being here and speaking with the clients and the government, you see a lot more,” Palanca says. “I was surprised with the activities happening. It’s very exciting.”