EastWest Banking Corp., the financial services arm of the Gotianun Group, said it expects a loan growth of 20 percent this year, as the bank’s investments in the past start to deliver positive results.
“If we don’t grow [our loans] by 20 percent this year, we won’t be happy,” EastWest president and chief executive Antonio Moncupa Jr. told reporters in an interview.
“We have many investments in the past… These investments are starting to bear fruit,” Moncupa said.
EastWest teamed up with the Netherlands-based Ageas Insurance International N.V., a global insurance firm, to form a new life insurance company in the Philippines.
Bangko Sentral approved the P500-million initial investment by EastWest in the joint-venture company called EastWest Ageas Life.
EastWest signed a joint-venture agreement with Ageas in May last year for the creation of a life insurance firm that will enable it to sell insurance products to customers.
Under the partnership, EastWest will sell life insurance products through its various sales channels for 20 years.
Moncupa also said EastWest was open to the idea of forging partnerships with foreign banks if the opportunity arose.
“New partners? We are open to that. It comes when it comes. It opens when it is there…,” Moncupa said.
EastWest posted a 21-percent decline in net income in the first nine months to P1.3 billion from P1.64 billion a year ago due to lower trading gains and higher provisions.
Gross revenues grew 8.8 percent in the nine-month period to P11.91 billion from P10.94 billion
in the same period in 2014, while expenses jumped 16 percent to P10.25 billion from P8.84 billion.
The bank’s trading and securities gains fell 61 percent to P243.3 million from P620 million, while earnings from foreign exchange trading rose 18.4 percent to P163.45 million from P138.04 million.
EastWest Bank said net interest income increased 23 percent on the back of the 34-percent surge in higher yielding consumer loans and the 12-percent rise in corporate loans to P140.8 billion as of end September.
The rise in the bank’s operating expenses was traced to the 35.7-percent jump in provision for impairment and credit losses to P3.08 billion in the first nine months of 2015 from P2.27 billion in the same period a year ago.
Total assets surged 28 percent to P213.5 billion as of end September, while total capital grew 46 percent to P30.6 billion.