EastWest Bank acquires 2 StanChart units in PH

GOTIANUN-LED East West Banking Corp. has bought two wholly owned local subsidiaries of British banking giant Standard Chartered Bank and an agreement to handle the foreign bank’s retail business in the country.

In separate disclosures to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) last Friday, EastWest Bank said it had acquired Assurance Solutions Insurance Agency Inc. (Asia) and Price Solutions Philippines Inc. (PSPI).

Asia provided marketing and sales services exclusively to the bancassurance clients of Standard Chartered Bank’s Philippine branch while Pspi was a 100-percent owned subsidiary of SCMB Overseas Ltd. that sold and marketed credit cards as well as personal lending products to Standard Chartered Bank in the country.

Both Asia and PSPI will become subsidiaries of EastWest Bank, pending approval of the policy-making Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

EastWest Bank did not disclose the acquisition costs.

In another disclosure, EastWest Bank informed the PSE that it entered into an agreement with Standard Chartered Bank Philippines under which “credit cards, personal loans, wealth management and retail deposits of Standard Chartered Bank in the Philippines will be migrated to EastWest.”

“The agreement is expected to be completed within the year, subject to regulatory approvals,” EastWest Bank said.

“EastWest and Standard Chartered Bank will work closely in the coming months to collaborate on a range of retail banking opportunities and to provide a seamless transition for the retail banking clients and staff to EastWest,” it said.

“We are very pleased to have been chosen by Standard Chartered Philippines as its counterparty in this agreement. We expect this agreement to be value accretive as we further enhance our retail and consumer banking scale. We look forward to future opportunities to assist Standard Chartered in serving the retail banking needs of its corporate and institutional clients,” EastWest Bank president and chief executive Antonio C. Moncupa Jr. said.

Standard Chartered Bank Philippines chief executive Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar said their agreement with EastWest Bank was aligned with the global strategy to focus on retail markets where Standard Chartered had scale.