RIZAL Commercial Banking Corp., the ninth-largest lender in terms of assets, is considering tapping the debt market to refinance maturing domestic and foreign exchange obligations.
Bank president and chief executive Gil Buenaventura declined to give an estimate for the borrowings, saying the bank was still studying the plan, including the size and tenor.
“Maybe refinancing… both dollar and peso because we have some maturing [obligations]… If you track the ROP (Philippine bonds), the rates have been so attractive… So banks will just follow that,” he said.
“I think many banks, not only banks but also corporates, who are planning to refinance,” he said. He also declined to give the timetable for the plan.
Buenaventura said RCBC wanted to make its presence felt more in the country’s export processing zones catering to both local and foreign locators. He said RCBC would continue pursuing growth areas, such as consumer and small and medium enterprises.
“Actually we are covering all sectors but I think we just want to maintain our niche market, increase our presence in the export processing zones,” Buenaventura said.
“As you know, RCBC is the pioneer in the export processing zones and we want to make sure that we continue to enjoy that role in those areas. So I think if we ever do expand our branches, it will be in these export processing zones to cater to locators,” he said.
He said RCBC had already complied with the previous 50 licenses given by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas “and therefore we just need about five more for next year.”
He said RCBC had adequately covered nationwide and one of the keys to maintain business growth would be to really make the branches—now close to 500—more effective in cross selling products from other companies that are members of the RCBC Group.
“Like for instance RCBC Savings will rely heavily on the bank branches to be able to cross sell all these consumer products,” Buenaventura said.