Investment in technology by Asia United Bank, one of the fastest-growing publicly-listed universal banks, substantially paid off in the past decade, a top executive said Wednesday.
AUB is known for its digital innovations, which started years prior to the COVID-19 global pandemic which spurred many of its competitors to embark on digital transformation.
Among its digital innovations are e-wallet HelloMoney, pioneering payments via QR and the early adoption of the national QR PH code and AUB PayMate—an all-in-one digital payment acceptance product.
“No matter the challenge — be it the 1997 crisis, the global financial crisis in 2008, and the 2020 global pandemic — AUB has not only remained standing; in fact, it has been making the quantum leap,” AUB president Manuel Gomez said during the 10th anniversary of the bank’s initial public offering listing at the Philippine Stock Exchange.
He said much has changed in the world in the past decade since AUB’s public listing on May 17, 2013. Ten years ago, size was all that mattered and young banks such as AUB had to compete with bigger and older competitors which had the resources to put up branches all over the country and abroad.
“By investing in technology and making it a competitive advantage in the past decade [from 2013 to 2022], AUB was able to more than triple its total assets to P340 billion from P105 billion and its net income to over P6 billion from P1.5 billion,” Gomez said.
The bank said that from a return on equity of 9.96 percent in 2013, it posted 16.12 percent ROE in 2022, higher than prior to the pandemic.
“The pandemic was really a game changer. Suddenly, customers started moving to online and mobile platforms when they bank. Technology has shifted the game from size and scale, to agility and relevance. And for AUB, this is the level playing field,” Gomez said.