RCBC to save up to P700M after merger
Credit to Author: Mayvelin U. Caraballo, TMT| Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 16:56:43 +0000
LISTED Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) would save up to P700 million a year following its merger with RCBC Savings Bank (RSB), the head of the Yuchengco Group of Companies’ (YGC) holding company said on Monday night.
The merger “will save us probably P500 to P700 million a year in costs,” House of
Investments President and Chief Executive Officer Lorenzo Tan said during a YGC event for the media.
The consolidation “increased the productivity of RCBC branches in consumer loans and small and medium enterprises,” he added.
The merger was approved by the RCBC board on Nov. 26, 2018 and by the RSB board the following day, and received regulatory approval on July 17 this year.
With the merger, RSB’s 154 business and lending centers nationwide were consolidated with the 508 business centers of RCBC.
The consolidation would help the RCBC Group attain these objectives: more efficient capital deployment and compliance with Basel 3 liquidity ratios; optimal coordination between the branch banking networks of RCBC and RSB; medium-term improvement in the funding economics; and operational cost efficiencies.
Earlier, former RSB President and Chief Executive Officer Rommel Latinazo, now RCBC Consumer Lending Group head, said the merger would further boost RCBC’s consumer business.
This business, he added, would “continue to be one of the pillars of growth for the RCBC. And with the merger, we see more synergies happening.”
Latinazo was also optimistic that RCBC would exceed the consumer business growth it achieved in the last five years.
“The compounded annual growth rate of the consumer business has been 20 percent for the last five years. I guess the expectation is that it is already the minimum, as far as the growth is concerned,” he said.
RSB was the third largest thrift bank in the Philippines with total assets of P138.18 billion as of end-June.
RCBC is the country’s 10th largest universal/commercial bank with total assets of P546.63 billion as of the first half of 2019.
RCBC shares decreased by 50 centavos or 0.20 percent to close at P24.80 each on Tuesday.