MANILA, Philippines — Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) aims to double the percentage of clients using its digital platform in the next five years as it continues to deliver superior customer experience while reducing unit costs.
Cezar Consing, president and chief executive officer of BPI, said the 166-year old bank managed to book double-digit growth rates in the number of active users of digital channels including BPI Expressonline, BPI Express Mobile, and BPI BizLink.
“Our goal is to elevate our digital infrastructure to deliver superior customer experience while reducing unit costs. While we are already a leader in the area of digitalization amongst Philippine banks, our objective is to double the percentage of clients that access us digitally in the next five years,” Consing said.
Consing said the country’s third largest bank in terms of assets grew its client base by 6.6 percent to 8.5 million customers in 2017 from 7.9 million in 2016. This means that one out of every four Filipinos that have a bank account, has a bank account with BPI.
He added about 35.4 percent or three million of its client base use BPI Expressonline, 30.1 percent or 2.5 million use BPI Express Mobile, and 23.8 percent of corporate clients or 24,500 use BPI BizLink.
BPI executive vice president and head of Enterprise Services Group Ramon Jocson said the number of users of the listed bank’s digital platform could spike 50 percent with the introduction of new product sets next month.
“We believe the participation and penetration of online banking will probably spike up. I can easily say by 50 percent this year,” Jocson said.
The net income of BPI inched up 1.7 percent to P22.4 billion last year from P22.1 billion in 2016 as revenues rose 6.7 percent to P71 billion from P66.6 billion.
The bank’s loan book went up 15.5 percent to P1.2 trillion from P1.04 trillion, while its deposit base increased 9.1 percent to P1.56 trillion from P1.43 trillion.
BPI’s recently concluded P50 billion stock rights offering was oversubscribed by 22.3 percent as major shareholders remain committed to the growth strategy of the country’s third largest bank. It sold 558.66 million common shares to existing shareholders, but bids reached 683.26 million shares.
BPI’s major shareholders, including Ayala Corp., applied to subscribe for more than their pro-rata entitlements under the terms of the rights offer.
Consing said the overwhelming success of the fund raising activity is testament to shareholders’ support of the bank’s ability to execute its growth strategy.