PNB President and CEO Jose Arnulfo Veloso. (File photo)
MANILA – A “reasonable number” is being considered for Tan-led Philippine National Bank’s (PNB) income this 2020, given the huge provisioning as of August and the improvement of the domestic economy as of the third quarter.
In a virtual briefing Friday, PNB President and chief executive officer Jose Arnulfo Veloso said they increased loan loss provisions to nearly PHP9 billion as of last August to address the impact of the pandemic.
“But the PHP9 billion worth of provisions is something that, if trend in terms of economic numbers continues to improve, can be called back and therefore be part of net income. So, we’re optimistic given the third quarter numbers in terms of expected improvement in the economy,” he said.
In the first half of the year, the bank’s net income contracted to PHP1.4 billion from PHP4 billion in the same period last year due largely to provisioning.
Revenues in the first half of the year rose 24 percent year-on-year to PHP23.6 billion and net interest income was up by 19 percent to PHP17.5 billion.
Meanwhile, Veloso said they continue to urge their account holders to enroll in the bank’s digital platforms to further benefit from improvements being made on this area.
He said PNB has about 696,000 digital channel users as of last September, up by 31 percent against the same period last year.
He said mobile banking transactions rose by 18 percent to date compared to the pre-pandemic level.
“We see an upward trend on digital transaction activities as more customers get enrolled. Customers have started to embrace and become more comfortable in using these digital applications through their desktops and smartphones,” he said.
During the same briefing, PNB Chief Financial Officer Sonny Reyes said they allocated around PHP2.5 billion this year for information technology (IT) expenditures, 15 percent higher than last year.
He said the pandemic has proven the need for higher investment on IT and this is being discussed with greater importance for their 2021 allocations.
“So chances are we are going to increase it. But as to how much we are still trying to decide. This will obviously be a very big priority so far for capital expenditures is concerned,” he added. (PNA)
