Digital initiatives improve bank customer acquisition

CEBU, Philippines — Union Bank of the Philippines expects to expand its customer acquisition going forward, as it continues to engage initiatives via digital channels and platforms.

In its third quarter report, the bank breached 1.5 million retail digital customers from only 1 million retail digital customers in the second quarter.

Of this figure, over 335,000 were digital accounts opened via the UnionBank mobile application (app).

Consequently, UnionBank Mobile App transactions grew by almost three times to 3.6 million transactions for the month of September versus January 2020.

Similarly, corporate digital customers onboarded via the UnionBank ‘The Portal’ nearly doubled to over 14,500 from more than 7,900 at the start of the year.

However, the bank maintains its previous expectation of a flat loan and asset growth for the banking industry in 2020, given the continued weakness in the country’s economy and a slower demand for credit until the end of the year.

The bank also expects the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ reverse repurchase (RRP) rate and reserve requirement ratio (RRR) to be kept unchanged this year to give the economy some time to absorb the excess liquidity freed up earlier this year.

As of end-September, RRP rate and RRR is at 2.25 percent and 14 percent respectively, lower by 175bps and 200bps from the start of the year.