History of Philippines Banks
History of Philippines Banks
History of Philippines Banks
About Me
NAME: JANE SUBANG LOCATION: PHILIPPINES
A statistics major, Leticia Subang spent the first 10 years of her professional career as an economic
reporter covering for the Philippines' leading business paper. She later opted to become a free lance
writer while working for her Masters Degree in Development Management. In the next ten years, she
worked for a number of leading government agencies - the National Power Corporation, Public Estates
Authority, Departments of Trade and Industry, Agriculture, Labor and Employment, and Energy.
View my complete profile
Endowed with large funds from the legacies of the wealthy faithful, the
religious foundations called Obras Pias or Pious Works started in the 16th
century to become the precursors of lending institutions in the country.
But traders also tapped the Obras Pias as source of financing for the
Galleon trade, which lasted for 250 years with over a hundred vessels
crossing between the Philippines and Mexico.
Horacio de la Costa, SJ, describes the role played by the Obras Pias in the
trade:
“Since these institutions also insured the goods shipped on the galleon,
they acted, in effect, as the colony’s commercial banks. Because of the risks
of the voyage, their premiums and interest rates were high; but shippers
had little hesitation in paying them because of the even greater profits.”
But on their own, other businessmen of the Spanish colonial period were
A Legacy of Innovations engaged in money lending as well. For client they had the native who tilled
Norkis: An extended, the land mainly to feed his own family. On this Martinez de Zuniga wrote
expanding family
in 1803:
Plain and simple hard “There’s no money. What does he do? He cannot sell his land, because the
work
law forbids it. So he goes to a mestizo for the money. The mestizo give it to
Building classrooms:
him, on condition that he mortgages his land by the contract known as
Viable social project for
firms “sangla-bili,” that is, a sale with option to repurchase. And every time the
Poverty-free zones in native comes for money, the mestizo gives it to him (on the same terms),
Southern Leyte until the amount he has drawn becomes so great that he cannot possibly
Showing off the repay it to redeem his land. Thus, the option to repurchase lapsing, the
Philippines
contract comes a straight sale and the mestizo acquires full ownership of
Remembering Puerto the land.”
Princesa
‘Istiv’ helps improve SME
productivity While no less shrewd, foreign merchants were fairer. From Antonio
OFWs help address acute
Regidor and J. Warren Mason, we learn that at the start of each planting
classroom shortage in season, they estimated what the value of the next harvest would be and
publ... paid the farmers for it in advance. If the advance was subsequently found
A YEAR AFTER: New to be too little, the balance was returned to them. But if the crop had been
village rising where 120
died
over-valued, the difference was extended on to the sale from next harvest.
Need a click? With the advent of the first steam machines for hulling rice and the
establishment of experimental farms, foreign firms provided more crop
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growers with short-term financing. Eventually they introduced the
Filipino Journalists rudiments of formal banking, receiving funds for deposit and paying
interest as well as dealing in foreign exchange and brokering for insurance
Joy de los Reyes, Malaya
Editor-in-Chief companies.
Philippine Center for Enterprising locals quickly followed suit. “Banks” were set up by Francisco
Investigative Journalism Rodriguez, Damaso Garricho and Mariano Tuason. Commission and
Jove Francisco, commercial houses were opened, and bills of exchange along with other
Malacanang Reporter negotiable instruments used in business transactions were introduced.
My friends According to Benito Legarda, Jr., the bills of exchange were comparable to
Paul Farol the present-day letters of credit:
“With the bills of exchange… traders could buy with little capital. A
European buyer, for example, could dispatch a ship to Manila with an
order for so many tons of, say, sugar, and pay for these with a bill of
exchange. When the order arrived in London, the bill would not fall due
until nine months later, giving the trader enough time to sell his goods and
perhaps play with market prices.”
As trade between the Philippines and other nations like China and India
flourished, the demand for banking services mounted. The domestic
banking system formally came into being in August of 1851, when the
Junta de Autoridades under Governor General Antonio de Urbiztondo
passed a resolution creating the Banco Espanol-Filipino de Isabel II, which
evolved into what is now the Bank of the Philippine Islands.
The Obras Pias and the Banco Espanol-Filipino were operated, in effect, as
two branches of the same institution. The former was compelled by the
Spanish authorities to undertake the less remunerative part of the banking
business… It was made to accept mortgages on houses or town building
properties, in full security for loans, when houses were not easily
convertible into money… while the Bank Espanol-Filipino was given every
right the authorities could extend to elevate it to a commanding position. It
was permitted to require what security it desired for loans.”
The system expanded further with the organization of the country’s first
savings bank in 1882 by Fray Felix Huertas. As its name indicates, Monte
de Piedad y Casa de Ahorros (later known as Monte de Piedad and Savings
Bank) combined the functions of bank and pawnshop. Its start-up capital
of P33,959 was made available by the Real Case de Misericordia, a
religious foundation.
Monte de Piedad paid four percent per annum on deposits with the
maximum set at P1,000 for each client. It likewise extended loans at six
percent, accepting jewelry, new and used clothing and other valuables as
security.
With the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution of 1896, the first bank run
was recorded. The Spanish-American War in 1898 caused another run,
with Spanish military personnel and civil officials withdrawing their
deposits before returning to Spain. Although still in its infancy, the system
survived both.
In the early years, several local banks arose not just in the capital, but also
in Pangasinan and Zambales, but most were short-lived. More
significantly, the International Banking Corporation opened in 1904, to be
absorbed later by the National City Bank of New York, the present
Citibank. It was then too that the Manila Building and Loan Association, a
pioneering venture in development financing, was organized.
Initially, banking services were made available in the rural areas by the
Postal Savings Bank. But in 1908, the American colonial government
established the First Agricultural Bank of the Philippines. Capitalized at P1
million, it granted loans to farmers equivalent to 40 percent of the
assessed value of the real estate used as collateral.
More banks began doing business in the country, among them, Yokohama
Specie Bank, precursor of the Bank of Tokyo, which dealt chiefly with
Japanese firms involved in abaca plantations in Mindanao; the Chinese
American Bank of Commerce of Peking; and the China Banking
Corporation.
In 1929, the US stock market crashed, signalling the start of the Great
Depression. As the crisis deepened, Wall Street investment houses and
banks came under scrutiny. Here, the supervision of banks was transferred
from the Bureau of Treasury to the Bureau of Banking under the
Department of Finance.
But the local banking system continued to attract investors, to wit, the
People’s Bank and Trust Company in 1926, the National City Bank of New
York in 1930, the Japanese-owned Bank of Taiwan and the Nederlands
Handelsbank NV in 1937. With the Philippine Trust Company and the
Philippine Bank of Communications, they brought to 11 the total number
of banks.
When the Philippine stock market itself crashed in 1938, many brokerage
firms went bankrupt, among them the Finance and Mining Brokerage
headed by Miguel Cuaderno, Sr. Cuaderno subsequently organized the
Philippine Bank of Commerce, the first wholly Filipino-owned private
commercial bank, with himself as president. With him in the venture were
the prominent Cojuangco, Jacinto and Rufino families, as well as well-
known figures like Lorenzo Sumulong, Aurelio Montinola and Francisco
Lopez.
At about the same time, the government organized the Agricultural and
Industrial Bank to take over the agricultural lending activities of the PNB.
Just before the outbreak of World War II, the Philippine banking network
comprised 17 offices in Manila with 22 branches and 154 agencies around
the islands, with an aggregate resource base of P371 million.
As preparations for the war intensified, the banks experienced heavy
withdrawals. People used the money to stock up on canned goods,
clothing, soap and other essential commodities. Many went home to the
provinces where they felt they would be safer.
The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941. A month later, they
occupied Manila. The Philippine currency was demonetized and replaced
with Japanese military notes.
The “buy and sell” business flourished as materials needed for the war
effort like scrap metal, copra and coconut oil, sugar, rice and other food
items were funnelled to the Japanese military forces.
Post-war reconstruction
With the defeat of the Japanese by the Allied Forces in 1945, the
Yokohama Specie Bank and the Bank of Taiwan quit the Philippines.
Meanwhile, the Nederlands Handelsbank was acquired by the Bank of
America.
The banks were freed from any liability for deposits made during the
Japanese Occupation and made responsible only for pre-Occupation
deposit balances less voluntary withdrawals.
The PNB was rehabilitated through Commonwealth Act No. 726 in July
1945, and the Rehabilitation Finance Corporation was established under
Republic Act No. 85. Capitalized at P350 million, it was to provide credit
facilities for the reconstruction and diversification of the ravaged economy.
The era of managed currency system for the country had begun. The
appropriate levels of money supply and international reserves needed to
meet economic targets were now determined by the monetary authorities.
These developments encouraged the bankers to band together and for the
Bankers’ Association of the Philippines in March 1949. Elected president
was Felix de la Costa.
Rediscounting was introduced. In the past, the banks had to utilize their
own resources to meet their clients’ requirements. Now they could borrow
from the Central Bank, the bank of banks, with receivables as collateral.
Previously, small farmers and traders had limited access to formal banking
services, and were forced to turn to usurious money lenders. The
enactment of Republic Act No. 720 or the Rural Banking Act of 1952
sought to remedy the problem, setting as target a rural bank for every
municipality.
The country’s first, the Rodriguez Rural Bank owned by the family of
Senate President Eulogio Rodriguez, was inaugurated in Pasig, Rizal, in
December 1952. Four months later, 24 rural banks formed the Rural
Bankers Association of the Philippines, with Alfredo Montelibano as
president. Eight years after the passage of Republic Act No. 720, the
Central Bank was supervising 160 of them.
Republic Act No. 2081 was passed in June 1958, amending the charter of
the Rehabilitation Finance Corporation and renaming it the Development
Bank of the Philippines. This proved to be the catalyst for development
banking. The following year, the Lipa Development Bank was established.
By the end of the decade, the country’s development banking system was
composed of DBP’s 39 branches and five private development banks. This
on top of 21 commercial banks and four savings and mortgage banks.
On another front, the private sector took the lead in packaging other types
of financial services. In the Fifties, six financing companies came into
existence: the First Acceptance and Investment Corporation and Filipinas
Investment and Finance Corporation in 1955; the Industrial Finance
Corporation in 1956; the Commercial Credit Corporation and Filipinas
Mutual Finance Inc. in 1957; and the House of Investments in 1959.
The Bank Deposit Security Law or Republic Act No. 1405 was passed in
1955, prohibiting the disclosure of or inquiry into deposits with any
banking institution. A Central Bank circular in May 1956 fixed interest
rates on deposits at 2 percent per annum compounded quarterly for
savings deposits and 2.5 percent for time deposits with 12-month maturity.
Faced with mounting inflationary pressure, the Central Bank used a wide
range of instruments to control the demand for credit. Between 1957 and
1959, it raised the bank’s reserve requirement on demand deposits and
partially suspended their access to rediscounting windows. Similarly
upped was the interest rate on savings deposits.
Summing up, the controls and restrictions that the Central Bank imposed
in its first decade of operation ushered in profound changes in the
methods of doing business and patterns of consumption in the country.
Excess money in circulation was siphoned off from the system, and the
peso-dollar exchange rate stabilized. By November 1965, it stood at
P3.90:$1.
Confronted with yet another monetary crisis, the third since the Central
Bank was created, the authorities reverted to credit control. Unpopular
with the business community, the move underscored the need to strike a
balance between economic expansion and price stability.
The1967 monetary crisis paved the way for the first rescheduling of the
country’s foreign debt, by then maturing. Furthermore, fresh credit to
finance increased export production costs had to be secured.
As condition for the standby loan that the International Monetary Fund
finally extended, the Philippines had to adopt a stabilization program with
more stringent credit controls. Again rediscount rates were increased,
special time deposit requirements on import letters of credit revived, and
ceilings on loan portfolios of commercial banks as well as regulation of
certain foreign exchange transactions re-established.
Two more government banks became operational – the Land Bank of the
Philippines mandated to finance the national agrarian reform program,
and the Philippine Veterans Bank, to grant loans to army veterans, their
families and heirs.
In 1963, Republic Act No. 3779 vested supervision of savings and loan
associations in the Central Bank. The first SLA, aptly named First Savings
and Loan Association, was organized in July 1965.
In 1968, the Central Bank had to close a commercial bank, a savings bank,
and four rural banks, which led to a bank run. So grave was the crisis that
besides ordering the release of emergency advances, the CB governor had
to personally calm the crowds of worried depositors and urge the banks to
display in their lobbied piles of peso bills to reassure the public.
The Central Bank then required commercial banks to increase their capital
to at least P20 million over a five-year period. It also imposed rules on
loans to directors, officers, stockholders and related interests or DOSRI.
At the end of the decade, there were 41 commercial banks in the country
with total assets of close to P10 billion. DBP and the private thrift banks
accounted for another P2.5 billion, while the 369 rural banks had
combined resources of P409 million.
The Philippine formal banking system was now over a century old. It had
weathered interesting times indeed. But even more interesting times, both
politically and economically, lay ahead.
11 Comments:
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8:02 AM
Slim said...
Aloha Jane Subang, I'm in Hawaiian mood as I'm listening to Ki ho'alu
music (If you've not heard this type of guitar music then you are in for a
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12:30 AM
kredietlenenhypotheken said...
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heb je dan nog kans op financieringen bij bijvoorbeeld postkrediet?
1:28 PM
kredietlenenhypotheken said...
Hello Blogger ,Als je bij een bank niet slaagt voor een lening heb je dan
nog kans op een lening bij bijvoorbeeld postkrediet?
2:44 PM
Sonyfan said...
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been spending too much time reading blogs and forex currency trading
beginner information. I'm supposed to be looking for forex currency
trading beginner items but I find it all too easy just to click 'Next' and
just see anything which is how I came to Banking in the beginning.
Some blogs I just skip through but I spent a while here. Ciao.
10:38 PM
Busybee said...
Hi Jane Subang, this is my last visit on the 'net for now - I'm tired. I
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just reading what takes my fancy. Good blog you have here, I enjoyed
my visit. Have a great day and it's back to chart currency trading
searches for me tomorrow.
9:22 PM
kingpebble said...
Aloha Jane Subang, I'm in Hawaiian mood as I'm listening to Ki ho'alu
music (If you've not heard this type of guitar music then you are in for a
treat!) so I'm not really concentrating very hard but I came across
##TITlE## looking up gen on forex currency trading beginner.
Anything to do with forex currency trading beginner I always look at,
though I do have a tendency to wander about in blogs just reading
generally.
4:31 AM
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