posted May 08, 2016 at
11:20 pm by Julito G. Rada [thestandard.com.ph ]
The real estate exposures
of universal, commercial, thrift banks and trust departments rose 5.9 percent
to P1.5 trillion at the end of 2015 from a quarter ago, the Bangko Sentral ng
Pilipinas said over the weekend.
The amount accounted for
23.7 percent of the banks’ total loan portfolio during the period, slightly
lower than 24.1 percent posted at the end of September 2015.
“The end-2015 REE is 5.9 percent
higher than that posted by the banks a quarter earlier. The rise is attributed
to the banks’ real estate loans, which grew by 6 percent to P1.3 trillion quarter-on-quarter,” the
regulator said.
The loans comprised 86.2
percent of banks’ real estate exposures at end-2015.
Real estate loans and
investments in securities as a percentage to total loan portfolio stood at 20.4
percent and 3.3 percent, respectively, as of end-2015.
The banks’ investments in
real estate securities, meanwhile, expanded 5.1 percent quarter-on-quarter to
P209.7 billion at the end of last year. The banks’ exposure to real estate
securities accounted for 13.8 percent of real estate exposures during the period.
“While real estate
exposures sustained an increase, the non-performing real estate loans ratio of
universal, commercial and thrift banks followed a downtrend. At end-2015, the
banks’ non-performing real estate loans ratio stood at 2.1 percent, marginally
lower than the 2.2 percent recorded a quarter earlier,” the Bangko Sentral
said.
Most of respondent banks,
or 95.2 percent, in a Bangko Sentral survey for the first quarter of 2016
indicated unchanged credit standards for commercial real estate loans. The
diffusion index approach, however, showed a net tightening of overall credit
standards for the said type of loans.
“The tighter overall credit
standards for commercial real estate loans reflected respondent banks’ reduced
tolerance for risk, deterioration in the profile of borrowers, and perception
of stricter financial system regulations,” the Bangko Sentral said.
The regulator monitors the
real estate exposures of banks as part of its broader role of assessing the
quality of bank exposures to the different sectors of the economy.
It said maintaining high
loan quality was essential to the promotion of financial stability, one of its
key policy objectives.
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