PLANBANK, the largest rural bank in the province of Laguna, is looking forward to a modest double-digit growth for 2016.
According to Planbank President Dominga Rufina S. Cabangon Chua at the blessing and inauguration of the lender’s Meycauayan branch, Planbank is confident of posting continued growth, no matter the volatile global markets and the rather tentative state of rural banks in the country.
“We’re always looking at a 10-percent growth annually,” the lady executive said on gross income.
She also acknowledged quite a few challenges the rural banking arm of the ALC Group of Companies had in the first half of the year, but stressed Planbank stands firm and optimistic on making its presence felt and expanding its footprint in the market.
Planbank Meycauayan was formerly in Barangay Muzon, San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, but was strategically moved closer to the consumer hub of the area. It now stands as the 14th branch of the rural bank across Laguna, Bulacan and Batangas.
“It was more of just transferring that particular branch because of opportunities in the area. We have close proximity to the Meycauayan Market, and it’s enabled us to come up with our newest product which is microfinance,” Cabangon Chua explained.
Planbank has positioned its newest branch at the forefront of its own financial inclusion program for the marginalized sector through its microlending program that allows customers to avail themselves of loans as small as P5,000 up to a maximum of P25,000, with only a 5-percent interest rate.
Lending is set up as a group of at least five members, with a leader tasked with ensuring the members pay their weekly or monthly dues. In a sense, the loans take the structure of the traditional paluwagan system in the country but in a more formal setting.
“The bigger banks are looking into middle-class markets through the purchase of other rural banks. So we’re looking at other areas of opportunities that others do not easily penetrate,” Cabangon Chua said.
Planbank is also set to open its next branch in Batangas City within the year.
Cabangon Chua said the expansion betrays the solid financial underpinnings of the lender and that the bank is doing well, considering that most rural banks in the country have not been as robust. In 2015 the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas shut down 14 rural banks.
The lender is also looking at penetrating Metro Manila in the near future.
“Before my dad passed away, one of the few areas he wanted to enter was Manila. So we’re also looking at that opportunity,” she said.
For now, Canlubang in Laguna is where Planbank management has chosen to be headquartered.
Planbank, formerly known as the Rural Bank of Canlubang Planters Inc., was a family-owned bank incorporated in 1952. The ALC Group of Companies acquired the lender in October 2013.
Among the member-companies of the ALC Group of Companies include Fortune Life Insurance Co., Fortune General Insurance Corp., Fortune Medicare Inc., Eternal Gardens, Eternal Plans Inc., publicly listed Citystate Savings Bank Inc. and the Aliw Media Group, which includes the BusinessMirror, Philippines Graphic and Aliw Broadcasting Corp.
Image credits: Alysa Salen