THE various banks sold receivables collectively worth P16.6 billion in the first five months and helped fuel aggregate lending which has been growing in double-digit rates for 17 straight months already.
This was 64.3 percent higher than a year earlier when the banks brought for rediscounting at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) receivables worth only P10.1 billion.
Of the amount, the bulk of 78.3 percent or P13 billion represented commercial loans while 18.2 percent or P3.02 billion were loans obtained for capital expenditure purposes, or for permanent working capital, for housing and for other services.
Loans for capital expenditure purposes equaled 6.4 percent, other services equaled 8.7 percent, permanent working capital another 2.9 percent and housing loan only 0.2 percent.
These numbers validate the monetary policy stance that peso liquidity remains supportive of non-inflationary growth and readily available no matter the caution thrown in the wake of the economy’s having exceeded expectations by growing at a fast clip averaging 6.4 percent in the first quarter.
But while peso rediscounting during the period remained strong, dollar rediscounting activities were weak, mostly because the country’s exporters regularly taking their receivables to the rediscounting window have not been as active as they were in the past.
According to the BSP, the aggregate dollar rediscounts for the period amounted to only $66 million which was 21.5 percent lower than a year earlier when total rediscounts at that time aggregated $84.1 million.
Economists at Barclays Bank, HSBC, Moody’s Investor Service and many others have tied the lackluster export sector activities in the Philippines to the lack of demand from markets in the United States and the euro area.
As a result, the 10 commercial banks regularly servicing the trade-finance activities of Filipino exporters have not been as active in rediscounting their dollar-denominated receivables like in the past.
Rediscounting allows the banks to sell their receivables to the BSP at a discount to their face value but more than make up for the paper loss by quickly turning around and lending the money again to other borrowers.
But only banks with no outstanding regulatory issues may avail themselves of the privilege as the BSP refuses to open the window to those with unresolved matters at hand.
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