For a small-business owner trying to restock shelves, pay suppliers or seize a sudden sales opportunity, waiting weeks for a loan decision can mean missing the moment. Ginbee Go, incoming president and chief executive officer of Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), wants to make getting credit less of an exercise in patience.
Speaking at the ASEAN Inclusive Growth Summit, Go offered a glimpse of how BPI plans to rethink lending to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), with faster loan processing, better use of data and technology, and credit delivered closer to where entrepreneurs do business.
One initiative under consideration is a pilot using agentic artificial intelligence to accelerate loan applications.
“Small business owners need capital right away,” Go said, pointing to the urgency of matching lending decisions with the pace of business.
The bank is also consolidating information across legacy systems and combining transaction histories with external credit data to build a fuller picture of borrowers. The aim is to improve lending models and assess creditworthiness beyond conventional financial statements and documentation.
That shift also requires a change inside the bank. Go said employees need better skills and teams must be organized to make effective use of technology.
But not every entrepreneur can be evaluated using the same yardstick.
BPI’s main banking operations cater to more formal businesses, while subsidiary BanKo focuses on self-employed microentrepreneurs, including home-based business owners who may have little paperwork to show for their operations.
For these borrowers, the bank takes a more hands-on approach. Field personnel visit businesses, look at inventories and observe sales to understand how much financing entrepreneurs need and whether they can repay.
Technology, Go suggested, should make this personal approach more effective, not eliminate the human element in lending.
She also sees room to widen access through partnerships with national and local governments and communities, while reducing service costs and improving financial education to encourage responsible borrowing.
Another opportunity lies in embedded finance, which would allow entrepreneurs to access credit through the everyday transactions they already make, rather than having to approach a bank separately whenever a funding need arises.
The thinking is straightforward: small businesses should not have to stop running their businesses just to chase a loan. For BPI, making credit more accessible means bringing the bank closer to the entrepreneur, not simply asking the entrepreneur to come closer to the bank.
