Security Bank to rely on retail business as another growth driver

Security Bank (banksinthephilippines.com)

MANILA — Security Bank vies to further expand its retail banking business in line with the bid to make it the third strong driver of the bank’s business.

Security Bank President and Chief Executive Officer Alfonso L. Salcedo, Jr., in a disclosure with the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Wednesday, said they are “focused” on making retail banking the third leg of the business to complement their wholesale banking and financial markets businesses.

“Retail banking is a steady-growth, sustainable and higher margin business which is less volatile than cyclical businesses,” he said.

In the first half of 2015, the bank posted a 29 percent annual increase in net income to Php 4.657 billion.

The bank attributed this to strong rise of loans, which went up by 20 percent year-on-year, and deposits, which rose 18 percent year-on-year.

Total loans in the first six months of this year amounted to Php 207 billion and deposits totaled to Php 257 billion.

In particular, corporate and commercial loans grew by 18 percent during the six-month period while consumer loans rose by 90 percent.

Developments in these two factors resulted to the 15 percent increase in the bank’s assets to Php 442 billion.

During the same time, loan-to-deposit ratio stood at 81 percent, return on assets (ROA) at 2.

2 percent and interest income on loans went up by 17 percent bringing the expansion in total interest income to 11 percent year-on-year.