BPI eases financing for Cebuano SMEs

CEBU, Philippines —  The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) aims to capture a significant share of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) market in Cebu through easier financing offers.

BPI President Cezar P. Consing made this announcement in his visit to Cebu Thursday, saying Cebu’s bustling economy should be well supported by financial institutions to give SMEs easier access to funding.

To reach out to more businesses to avail of financing facilities, the bank is planning to add more branches within the province and boost its newly installed division BPI Business Banking.

“We will be opening more branches in Cebu City and nearby areas, and will be complemented by our investments in technology as we work towards digitalizing the bank. This will help us serve our clients in a more efficient way and provide more organizations access to relevant financial solutions,” Consing said in a round table discussion announcing the bank’s aggressive move to tap the growing SME community in Cebu.

Cebu accounts for 54 percent of the whole Visayas-Mindanao business, while the whole of Visayas accounts for 60 percent of the entire VisMin business.

Consing said the bank aims at growing its business in Cebu by 10 percent this year.

At present, there are a total of 45 BPI branches around the province, and 12 Banco BPI branches.

Last year, Consing announced in Cebu the bank’s installation of Business Banking Segment, which will focus on accommodating exclusively the unique needs of SMEs especially in access to finance.

According to Junie Veloso, segment head for BPI Business Segment, the bank is working on attracting SMEs to access finance requirements to the banks, while most SMEs in the country today are still intimidated to avail of loans through banks due to stringent requirements.

With the Business Banking service, which is constantly developing a model to provide an SME-friendly platform and credit score cards that eliminate hard-to-comply requirements in traditional bank loan application platforms.

“We are trying to find a model to enable us to be more inclusive and more appropriate for small and medium businesses,” explained Veloso.

“Our clients can expect new loan products that will make use of a new score card for faster loan processing and approvals. We’re looking at a 10-day turnaround time for standard applications, and even faster for certain products, Veloso added.

Access to finance had been the battlecry for Cebuano SMEs over the years, as they claimed banks’ standard requirements for loans are difficult for small and medium businesses to comply.