Bank of the Philippine Islands eyes 90 new branches in FY17F

The bank also bought stakes in several microfinance firms.

According to Maybank Kim Eng, BPI is putting more effort into expanding its reach in the microfinance segment. BPI recently completed the full acquisition of BPI Globe BanKo from Globe Telecom and Ayala Corporation, which owned 40% and 20% stakes, respectively.

Here's more from Maybank Kim Eng:

BPI Globe BanKo is a mobile phone-based microfinance focused savings bank. This will also be merged to its webbased bank for overseas Filipino – BPI Direct Savings Bank. Branch expansion is also in the works, with an additional 90 branches targeted in FY17F.

BPI also bought a minority equity stake in microfinance bank Rizal Bank, Inc (RBI-not listed). RBI has a partnership with Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Inc., which provides community services to landless women and has about 1.2m members.

BPI’s loan portfolio is skewed towards heavy corporate loans at 77% with consumer accounting for the 23% balance. SMEs account for only 9%. These initiatives, however, may only have a more meaningful contribution to the bottom line in the next 2-3 years.