Local banks express willingness to fund renewable energy projects

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines needs more investments in the renewable energy (RE) sector to spur more financing options from local banks, industry officials said yesterday.

A number of local banks have started offering more financing options to the RE sector, SN Power Philippines country director Tor Stokke said during the Nordic Business Council Philippines (NBCP) Renewable Energy Seminar yesterday.

“The RE market is more competitive. Local banks are more willing to finance projects and are very liquid,” he said.

This is because financial institutions are well aware of the move to develop RE projects, BDO Unibank Senior EVP and Head of Institutional Banking Group Walter Wassmer said in the same event.

“We follow the cue from the developer. As of now, developers are dabbling into RE,” he said.

To date, BDO has over P33-billion loan exposure to RE. “BDO is prepared to do its share in the global move to cleaner technologies,” Wassmer said.

However, the BDO official said majority of investments in the power sector are still concentrated in coal-fired power plants.

“A great, big portion of investments are still in coal-fired power plants. We’re not a subject matter expert; we are financial institution. We would have to look into the issues through the eyes of the developers and sponsors of developers,” Wassmer said.