Over a year after the Bangladeshi cyberheist, Yuchengco-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) feels it has moved on from the money laundering scandal and is now looking forward to a double-digit growth in profit in 2018.
“The numbers would show that after that incident, the bank is making money, doing well and we just have to make sure that we would do better,” RCBC president Gil Buenaventura told reporters on Tuesday night.
By next year, RCBC expects to grow its net profit by 10-12 percent from this year’s level. In the first nine months of this year, net profit stood at P3.4 billion versus P3.5 billion a year ago.
“We’re right on track, close to our budget,” he said.
Earnings next year will come mostly from core lending activities. “With the rising interest rates, there will be less opportunities for trading gains, so more income will be coming from regular loans. But there will be small window of opportunities for trading gains,” he said.
The bank has grown its loan book by 17 percent so far this year versus the average industry growth of 20-21 percent. Loan growth next year is seen to slightly ease to 15 percent as the bank focuses on smaller-ticket but higher-margin loans.
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“The thrust next year will be less of the big corporations, more of the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and consumer [loans], so these are smaller loans,” Buenaventura said.
To date, corporate lending accounts for about 60 percent of RCBC’s portfolio while the remaining 40 percent represents the combined SME and consumer loans.
