By Katlene O. Cacho
Saturday, October 23, 2010 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
THE Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC) said on Wednesday it has lowered its home loan interest rates to further encourage more clients to avail themselves of the bank’s services.
HSBC senior vice-president and head of personal financial services Ron Logan said the bank’s low home loan interest rate is timely on the back of the country’s growing real estate industry.
HSBC recently lowered its home loan interest rate from the previous 6.99 percent to 5.99 percent per annum under a one-year fixed re-pricing scheme, to pave the way for an easy entry for average Filipinos.
Interest rate
“The bank is serious about its home loan promotions as this is the lowest interest rate so far in the market,” Logan said.
The goal is not only to attract more clients to avail themselves of the product but to make home loans available at a cheaper interest rate to the average Filipino, he said.
Logan cited Cebu as one of the cities expected to contribute growth to the bank’s home
loan performance because of the city’s booming real estate developments.
He said the company hopes to tap major developments like condominiums, the type of market the bank is interested to facilitate.
While the bank’s credit card business is doing well in the market, Logan said the home
loan service is one of those products that the company will further strengthen in the country starting this year. He said that this is one of the products not fully maximized well in the Philippines, unlike in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
“For the Philippines we are very serious with our home loan service. We think that we haven’t paid enough attention to pushing this product here. The market share for home loan is still very small, but with the low interest rate offered by the bank, we hope to at least grow by 10 percent in the next couple of years,” Logan said.
Aside from strengthening its products here, Logan also expressed the bank’s confidence in the country’s economy, citing that the bank is much more confident this year compared to last year.
“When the global economy was hit by the financial crisis, the Philippine economy was one of those that never had a recession, only a slowdown,” he said.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on October 23, 2010.
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