BDO to open 50 to 70 new branches in 2017

Sy-led BDO Unibank Inc. on Tuesday said it is on track to attain its annual target of opening as much as 70 branches this 2017.

“We are looking at around 50 to 70 [new branches],” Nestor V. Tan, BDO President and CEO, told reporters in a briefing in Makati City.

BDO, also the country’s largest bank in terms of loans, deposits, capital and trust funds, said most of its new branches for the year will be set up outside Metro Manila.

“Most of them outside the National Capital Region,” Tan said.

To recall, the company saw its net income grow by 10 percent in the first nine months of 2016, on the back of the company’s robust core lending activities, fee-based businesses, and deposit-taking.

BDO reported a P19.3-billion net income in the January to September period, up from the P17.6-billion in the same period in 2015.

This brought the bank’s year-to-date net income to P48.4 billion, versus the P41.8 billion in 2015, as loans and deposits in the year continued to expand.

Share prices of BDO Unibank Inc. opened Tuesday at P113.00 apiece, down from the close of P114.80 per share on Monday. —KG, GMA News