Real-estate loans up 23% to P244.4 billion in Q2

Published on Thursday, 25 October 2012 18:20

Written by Jun Vallecera / Reporter

REAL-ESTATE loans, a key indicator of asset prices, stood at its highest since regulations were recast more than four years ago, at P244.4 billion in the quarter ending June this year, driven 23.2 percent higher by universal and commercial lenders looking to optimize profits under a very liquid but low interest-rate environment.

This development heightened the vigilance of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), looking keenly even now for signs of asset bubbles forming to avert economic mayhem down the line.

According to BSP Gov. Amando M. Tetangco Jr., this was 5.1 percent or P11.9 billion higher than real-estate loans of P232.6 billion at end-March.

The big universal and commercial lenders accounted for some 70 percent or P8.3 billion of the P11.9 billion quarter-on-quarter hike and 79.7 percent or P36.7 billion of the P46.1 billion rise, year-on-year.

The smaller thrift banks accounted for the remaining 29.8 percent or P3.5-billion quarterly hike and 20.3 percent or P9.4-billion annual hike in real-estate loans.

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The big universal and commercial banks owned more than 57 percent or P140.3 billion of total real-estate loans disbursed, larger than total loans disbursed a quarter earlier equal to 56.8 percent or P132 billion.

As a proportion of total loan portfolio, real-estate loans were flat at 5.8 percent in the first quarter and 5.1 percent in the second quarter.

Non-performing real-estate loans also eased four percent to P9.7 billion from P9.8 billion even as the real-estate loan book increased.

Non-performing real-estate loans viewed against total NPLs, however, rose to 7.7 percent at end-June from 7.4 percent at end-March no matter this was lower than year-ago real estate NPLs averaging 7.8 percent.

Thrift bank real-estate NPLs to total real-estate loans stood at 3.5 percent at end-June.

Thrift bank non-performing real-estate loans to total NPLs stood at 14.8 percent or more than double that of universal and commercial banks at only six percent.