Citi bullish on Philippines, plans expansion

Citibank N.A. is bullish on the Philippines, citing its plan to expand its lending business here and relocate some of its offshore-based services to the country.

Eugene McQuade, chief executive of the US-based multinational financial services firm, said Citi considered the Philippines as a key growth area given its economic growth potential and good-quality labor force.

He said the intention to relocate some of its customer-service businesses offshore to the Philippines would mean an increase in the number of jobs provided by Citi to the country. Citi has about 6,000 employees in the Philippines, half of which are in the banking business and the rest in business process outsourcing (BPO).

McQuade, who was in the Philippines Tuesday for a series of meetings, told reporters that Citi intended to take advantage of the growth potential of emerging Asian economies by expanding its business in the region and that the Philippines was one of its priorities.

“Emerging economies like the Philippines have been the global growth drivers since the crisis. Global economic expansion will continue to be Asian-led,” McQuade said.

The focus on emerging Asian economies is a strategy that Citi intends to observe in the next few years as a means to further strengthen profitability after it posted net losses in 2008 and 2009 at the height of the latest global economic turmoil.

“2011 marked the second straight year of profitability following the crisis. We intend to focus on our core businesses [including lending to consumers and enterprises], which we intend to maintain in the Philippines,” McQuade said.

He said Citi was keen on extending more loans to enterprises, including those that would invest in public infrastructure projects. Projects related to power and roads were some of those that Citi was interested to help finance, McQuade said.

The company executive also said Citi wanted to engage in more securities-related activities such as the management of bond sales.

Citi’s plan to increase its lending and other business in the Philippines comes with the expectation of a faster economic growth rate for the country for 2012. Sanjiv Vohra, country officer of Citi for the Philippines, said the company’s official growth projection for the country for this year was 4.2 percent.

Vohra said, however, that there was a probability that the country would beat the 4.2-percent growth projection for this year on the back of higher government spending and potentially higher export revenues.