BIZ BUZZ: New boss, same BPI playbook

Rising inflation and borrowing costs may be making life harder for borrowers, but Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is not retreating from retail lending.

And that commitment is expected to survive the bank’s upcoming changing of the guard.

BPI may tighten its credit standards and step up collection efforts, but it has no plans to deliberately scale back its exposure to the higher yielding but riskier consumer segment.

“We believe that the consumer is the growth area of this country,” BPI president and CEO Jose Teodoro “TG” Limcaoco told reporters on Monday on the sidelines of an event hosted by BPI Wealth.

“An economy does not always go down. You go through cycles,” he said. “And the consumer is powering this economy.”

That thinking is expected to carry over to BPI’s next chief, Maria Cristina “Ginbee” Go, who will take over from Limcaoco next year.

Limcaoco, who has led the bank since 2021, acknowledged that Go would have her own way of running things, but he is betting she will keep the consumer banking business going strong.