Bank lending grows at faster pace in 2019

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s biggest banks continued to post faster credit growth in December amid the easing cycle of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno said loans disbursed by universal and commercial banks went up by 10.9 percent to P9.51 trillion in December last year from P8.33 trillion in the same month in 2018.

The credit growth last December was the highest in eight months and was faster compared to the 10.1 percent recorded in November.

Diokno said loans extended for production activities grew at a faster rate of 9.1 percent to P8.07 trillion from P7.4 trillion and accounted for 87.4 percent of the total portfolio.

Diokno said the growth in lending to the real estate sector increased by 19.7 percent to P1.68 trillion as of end-December and accounted for 18.2 percent of the total loan disbursements by big banks.

Likewise, the increase in disbursements to the wholesale and retail trade as well as repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles picked up to 2.9 percent to P1.19 trillion for a share of 12.9 percent.

However, Diokno said loan releases to the manufacturing sector continued to contract, this time at a slower pace of 1.9 percent, to P1.05 trillion from P1.07 trillion.

On the other hand, the BSP chief disbursements for the electricity, gas, steam and airconditioning supply grew faster at 8.3 percent to P1 trillion from P929.45 billion.

Furthermore, he said loan disbursements to households grew faster at 27.5 percent to P893.25 billion last December from a year ago level of P658.16 billion amid the continued improvement in the country’s economic growth as well as lower interest rates.

Auto loans zoomed by 31.1 percent to P377.94 billion from P288.27 billion, while credit card loans surged by 28.1 percent to P367.66 billion from P287.09 billion.