BPI to open 3 more branches in Cebu

CEBU, Philippines — The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) will open three more branches in Cebu before the end of this year, closing 2017 with 39 outlets in the province.

BPI president and chief executive officer Cezar P. Consing said that BPI will make presence in Bogo, Carcar and Toledo next month.

Bogo and Toledo branches will be BPI Commercial banks, while the Carcar branch will be operated as BPI Family Savings Bank.

Consing said Cebu's overwhelming economic growth, which is faster than the national pace, opens positive prospects for the banking industry, particularly on deposits and loans.

"There is so much business confidence for Cebu. We are riding on that," said Consing in an interview.

In the last five years, the Ayala-led banking institution has been posting high double-digit growth in its Cebu operation, boosted not only by increased deposits and loan businesses, but also in other services such as asset management, capital market, among others.

He said the Cebu market is maturing in terms of taking advantage of the financial market, like banks.

Meanwhile, BPI promised to carefully and meticulously monitor its  back-office operational system, in order not to experience another "technology glitch," which recently happened in the BPI system.

The bank's president vowed that the management is taking the recent incident very seriously, and that what happened was largely human error, and has been addressed accordingly.

But, if a similar incident may happen again, considering that technology is not also perfect, BPI is already prepared to deal with such crisis.

In technology related issues, like a system glitch for instance, Consing said no one can say "never" if it will happen again. "We cannot say never."

He assured that BPI has a stable set up technology protocol, "so we can recover quickly." (FREEMAN)