Bank assets up 6.4% to P7.5 T

MANILA, Philippines -  Resources of the country’s banking sector hit a new record level of P7.501 trillion as of end-November last year, a 6.4-percent or P449-billion increase from the P7.052 trillion booked in the same period in 2010, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

Total resources of universal and commercial banks expanded by 7.1 percent to P6.721 trillion as of end-November last year from P6.271 trillion in the same period in 2010. The industry accounted for about 90 percent of the country’s total banking assets.

Assets of thrift, savings, and mortgage banks amounted to P595.72 billion as of end-November or P2.63 billion lower than the year-ago level of P598.35 billion

The BSP traced the increase in the assets of banks operating in the Philippines to the rising deposit base of the industry.

 “The increase could be traced to the growth in currency and deposits, indicative of the public’s continued trust in the banking sector,” the BSP said.

Latest data from the BSP showed that peso-denominated savings and time deposits remained the primary sources of funds for banks, increasing by 7.3 percent to P3.9 trillion as of end-November last year from P3.6 trillion as of end-November 2010 as more Filipinos continued to save in the formal banking sector.

Savings deposit registered an 8.6 percent growth and continued to account for nearly half of the funding base while demand deposits jumped 12.3 percent and time deposits inched up by one percent.

The BSP also reported that universal and commercial banks accounted for almost 90 percent of the total resources of the banking industry while rural, thrift and cooperative banks cornered the remaining 10 percent.

The Philippine banking system’s capital adequacy ratios (CAR) of 17.4 percent as of end-March last year remained comfortably above the BSP’s 10 percent requirement and the eight percent international standard set by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

The Philippine banking system’s CAR was also comparatively higher than those of Indonesia’s 17.2 percent, Thailand’s 16.2 percent, Malaysia’s 14.8 percent, and South Korea’s 14.5 percent. - By Lawrence Agcaoili (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)