While COVID-19-related lockdown persistsand the economy continues to reel from the impact of the global pandemic, Asia United Bank (AUB) has set aside an additional P638 million in loan loss provisions in the first quarter of 2021. This brings its loan loss coverage to 3.4 percent of its total loan portfolio.
The additional loan buffer represents a sixfold increase from P93 million in the same period last year. It was also the primary reason the AUB Group’s consolidated net income result for the first three months of the yearfell to P736 million or 38 percent lower than P1.2 billion a year ago. The net income translates to a return on equity of 8.5 percent and return on assets of 1.0 percent. The group’s first-quarter total assets grew 14 percent to P313 billion from P274 billion, previously.
Amid the lockdowns that discouraged clients from visiting bank branches, AUB managed to generate total deposits of P261 billion, a 20 percent increase from the previous year, with low-cost CASA deposits significantly driving the growth. The share of CASA deposits to AUB’s total deposit base rose to 73 percentfrom 65 percent, previously.
“This is solid proof that our steady investment in our digital channels has been paying off,” AUB president Manuel A. Gomez said.
Before the pandemic led to wider acceptance of digital platforms, AUB has already been enhancing its AUB Mobile App to enable fund transfers and the adoption of the national QR code for convenient fund transfers and payments via QR across banks.
Last week, it rolled out QR Ph to its customers and merchants under its AUB mobile app, HelloMoneye-wallet, and AUB PayMate digital payment acceptance platform, making AUB one of only three “issuer-acquirer” participants ready to use and accept the national QR code by May – months ahead of the BangkoSentral ng Pilipinas’ September deadline.
