Earning a reputation as one of the fastest-growing publicly listed universal lenders is no small feat for this lender given the series of crises it overcame, starting with the 1997 Asian financial crisis when Asia United Bank started.
“For many of the listed companies at the PSE, 10 years is not quite long time. But given the challenges we had to go through since we started, reaching every decade is truly worth celebrating,” AUB president Manuel A. Gomez said at the 10th observance of its listing at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE).
Gomez observed that much has changed in the world since its 17 May 2013 listing: “Ten years ago, size was all that mattered. Young banks such as AUB had to compete with bigger and older competitors which had the resources to put up branches all over the country and abroad.”
According to him, the pandemic proved a game changer as all of a sudden customers started moving to online and mobile platforms when they bank.
Technology, he said, shifted the game from size and scale to agility and relevance. And for AUB, this was the level playing field.
“By investing in technology and making it a competitive advantage in the past decade from 2013 to 2022, AUB was able to more than triple its total assets to P340 billion from P105 billion and its net income to over P6 billion from P1.5 billion.
“Our dividend yield has more than doubled from 2.09 percent in 2016 to 4.82 percent in 2022. Our cost-to income ratio trend is proof of our success at continually improving our operational efficiency, as we grew business size and revenues.
“This efficiency is solid proof that our sustained investments in automation enhancements and process optimization to deliver quality services to our customers efficiently at less cost is paying off,” Gomez said.
As of the first three months this year, AUB and four subsidiaries collectively booked a P2 billion net income, 54 percent higher than the same 2022 period. This resulted in a return on equity of 19.9 percent and a return on assets of 2.5 percent.
AUB first opened in a single room at the Parc Royale Condominium along Doña Julia Vargas Avenue in Ortigas Center, Pasig City on 31 October 1997 just a few months past the Asian financial contagion.
On the same year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas implemented several rounds of capital hikes among banks, tightened the rules on classifying loans and loan loss provisioning, and imposed stricter policies on the issuance of new banking licenses. It also obligated banks to disclose more information to the public.
“All these were meant for only the fittest to survive. But they also made the operating environment more hostile for a young player like AUB,” he said.
