Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., the tenth-largest lender in terms of assets, and partner Resona Holdings Inc. strengthened their alliance by finalizing a partnership with two banks under the Kansai Mirai Financial Group of Japan.
Resona Holdings is headquartered in the Kiba area of Koto, Tokyo. The main operating entities of the group are Resona Bank, a nationwide corporate and retail bank headquartered in Osaka, and Saitama Resona Bank, a smaller bank based in Saitama City, which primarily serves Saitama Prefecture. Most of these banks’ operations are descended from Daiwa Bank and Asahi Bank, which merged in 2003.
RCBC first senior vice president Yasuhiro Matsumoto said in a statement Tuesday that the bank’s newest venture with the Osaka-based Kansai Urban Banking Corp. and Kobe-based Minato Bank came at the perfect opportunity, allowing for Japanese companies and small medium enterprises to do business in the Philippines.
“These two banks are some of the best in the Osaka, Kansai area. Through them, we hope to bring more Japanese investors to the Philippines,” Matsumoto said.
“Likewise, RCBC can provide their banking requirements when they come to the Philippines,” he said.
Matsumoto said the partnership went both ways, allowing interested local firms and enterprises the opportunity to do business with Japanese firms.
RCBC’s partnership with Resona Group started in May 2013. Since then, both parties have assisted one another in nurturing Japanese SME clients.
RCBC has had long-standing relations with several Japanese companies dating way back in the 1970s.
In the last few years, other nations, including Japan, have expressed a growing interest in investing in the Philippines taking into consideration the country’s growing economy.
The country’s existing economic market and pool of customers is wide and varied enough to make it very attractive to several industries such as financial, retail and infrastructure, especially in the provincial areas.
RCBC is the financial flagship company of the Yuchengco Group of Companies. As one of the largest private universal and commercial banks in the country, RCBC provides a wide scale of services through its thrift bank, an investment bank, foreign exchange brokerage house, leading company, and overseas remittance companies.