EastWest Bank profit hits P6.1B in 2023

MANILA, Philippines. — The Gotianun family’s EastWest Bank saw its net income soar 32 percent to P6.1 billion in 2023 on robust consumer leading and noninterest earnings.

By the end of the year, the bank’s return on equity stood at 9.5 percent.

Net revenue in 2023 also rose 26 percent to P35.7 billion, mainly driven by the 25-percent jump in consumer lending.

“We witnessed significant growth in our major assets, our consumer loans portfolio,” EastWest president Jacqueline Fernandez said in a statement.

“This translated to a remarkable jump in our net income as we doubled down on our strength in consumer lending,” Fernandez said.

Consumer lending

EastWest noted that its consumer lending portfolio accounted for 80 percent of total loans.

“We reversed our two years of continuous decline and resumed our quest to be one of the top consumer banks in the country,” the bank president said.

Overall assets rose 10 percent to P464.2 billion in 2023. The bank’s noninterest income also increased by 51 percent to P7.4 billion.

Fees and commissions climbed 26 percent to P4.8 billion “as banking transactions grew in line with lending growth.” EastWest also recorded trading income of P993.6 million—a surge of more than five times.

EastWest’s total deposits last year grew 8 percent to P356.5 billion, with nearly 82 percent coming from low-cost current and savings account deposits.

Meanwhile, operating expenses grew by 19 percent to P20.3 billion. This was mainly due to “higher manpower and information technology costs to expand capacity and improve efficiency and business-related expenses associated with lending initiatives.”

EastWest said the faster revenue growth resulted in improved operating efficiency or cost-to-income ratio of 56.9 percent, from 60.2 percent the previous year.