BPI to open Singapore office in October
Bank of the Philippine Islands will expand its fund management services to Singapore by October. BPI seeks to capture a wider Filipino client base across Southeast Asia.
BPI president and CEO TG Limcaoco confirmed to reporters on Friday the Monetary Authority of Singapore had approved the bank’s capital market services license. The bank applied for such a license a year ago.
“We’re opening an office to serve Filipino clients in the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region and Filipino clients who want investments overseas that we can house in Singapore,” Limcaoco said.
This means that BPI will be able to offer fund management, product financing, capital markets products and other related services to clients based in Singapore.
The new office will operate inside the Marina Bay Financial Centre. Other tenants include multinational firm Standard Chartered Bank, Raffles Quay Asset Management and law firm Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow, among others.
Once open, BPI Wealth Singapore will be the second such international office after BPI Wealth Hong Kong. The Ayala-led bank also has BPI Europe Plc, its branch in London, United Kingdom.
According to Limcaoco, BPI Wealth Singapore is specifically aiming at preferred to high-net-worth clients, or those with an equivalent of P1 million to P50 million in investable income.
Limcaoco made the announcement as BPI, the country’s oldest bank, celebrated its 174th anniversary.
BPI recorded its strongest first-semester this year, logging a 7.8-percent climb in earnings to P33 billion as its loan portfolio expanded.
BPI chief financial officer Eric Luchangco said they were seeing the same growth prospects for the second half of this year.
“We’ve been showing decent performance … good loan growth at 14 percent and our [margins] have continued to improve, so we believe all of the factors exist for [growth] to continue until the end of the year,” Luchangco added.
Consumer loans have been particularly strong, with the segment growing by 26.9 percent—significantly faster than the institutional loan book’s 9.4-percent pace.
As a result, Limcaoco sees double-digit growth for BPI’s loan portfolio this year.
“It’s really powered by the consumer sector … I think we continue to have the best offerings, not only the cards and retail, mortgage or auto loans and SME lending, but we’re also broadening our [client] base,” Limcaoco said, adding that they now had close to 18 million customers versus 8 million in 2021.
