Plantersbank embarks on expansion
6:33 AM
Vernon Joseph Go
PLANTERS
Development Bank (Plantersbank) has strengthened its presence in key markets by
turning aggressive in its expansion with the goal of increasing its loan
exposures as well as other portfolios.
Gary Vargas,
Consumer Banking Group head of the bank, said the expansion aggressiveness is
part of the bank's re-engineering as it has ventured into opening more loan
windows together with setting up more branches.
Vargas, who
was in Cebu recently during the Cebu Business Month, said that among the
products that it has gone into were providing loans for housing, automobile,
personal as well big loans for companies who wanted to expand their businesses.
The bank,
whose main clients are small and medium enterprises, is also planning to open
10 more branches this year with five of the areas already identified. The bank
is set to open branches in Bacolod, Vigan, Makati, Tuguegarao and Mandaluyong.
Vargas added
that other areas being considered for branching are Naga City in Bicol, Isabela
City in Cagayan Valley and other areas in Metro Manila.
He said that
for the bank to open a branch, it needs to invest about P8 million for the
branch and that the total investment will reach to about P80 million.
About two
years ago, officials of the 70-branch bank said they will also look at whether
they can expand in key cities in the Visayas and Mindanao areas.
They said
the need to expand was intended to anticipate the growing market, particularly
the countryside as the bank wanted to provide better access to its main
clients, the small and medium enterprices.
With assets
of about P50 billion, Plantersbank is considered among the largest commercial
banks offering better lending windows for small and medium enterprises and in
the Top 250 of the country's 1,000 biggest corporations.
A consistent
recipient of global and national awards, the bank received the Presidential
Citation for MSME Development in 2009.
