Maybank hopes to grow consumer loan portfolio

MANILA, Philippines - Maybank Philippines Inc. hopes to grow its consumer loan portfolio next year as it banks on the sustained demand for cars and residential property, its top official said yesterday.

Maybank Philippines president and CEO Herminio M. Famatigan Jr. said 44 percent of the bank’s total loan portfolio is made up of retail loans.

“We want to get to 50 percent… and the biggest (chunk) would always be auto loans,” Famatigan said.

At present, auto loans account for about P14 billion, he said, which is equivalent to 70 percent of the bank’s P20-billion consumer loan portfolio.

 “We really want to grow our retail business. The nice thing about being part of the Maybank Group, it is a market leader in Malaysia, particularly in consumer lending, so we do learn from them,” Famatigan said.

“Our anchor consumer product is the auto loans and this is followed by housing loans,” he said.

Famatigan said the demand for housing loans has been increasing for Central Luzon, and key cities in Visayas and Mindanao.

Car sales rose 29.6 percent to 192,005 units in the first 10 months of the year from the same period last year, latest data from the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. and Truck Manufacturers Association showed.

Real estate loans of banks, meanwhile, climbed 21.2 percent to P924.317 billion in end-June from P762.493 billion in the same period a year ago, latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said.

Maybank Philippines has 79 branches in the country, 30 of which are in Metro Manila and the rest located in key cities in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The bank also has 93 offsite and on-site automated teller machines across the country.

The bank last month turned its Maybank Resorts World branch into a 24-hour branch, the first of its kind in the country. Famatigan said this move was done to better attend to the needs of their customers in the area.

Famatigan said the bank is also awaiting for the framework for Islamic banking in the country as its group is a main player in Islamic finance in different parts of the world.