Plan to sell SPC up for deeper review

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) plan to sell its Security Plant Complex (SPC) for 18 billion will require further study, the Monetary Board has decided.

Sources said the Monetary Board wants a deeper review of the proposed sale and transfer of SPC to another location from its current site in East Avenue, Quezon City. The SPC structures were built in 1978.

The SPC sale was first discussed by the Monetary Board in mid-November in a special meeting. “There’s a need to re-assess the plan to relocate, or to stay (at the current SPC location),” according to a source, who said the decision was made by the Monetary Board.

The Monetary Board, the BSP’s policy-making body, was presented with the propositions for review earlier, with financial projections and actual perspective on a leased land in Bonifacio Global City. Another proposed site is Clark, Pampanga.

BSP Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. has said that currency notes production is changing with digitalization. There is also an increase in the use of e-money and cryptocurrency, and Espenilla said they have to keep up in “thinking ahead how to produce currency in the future.”

The six-hectare SPC is where the BSP prints the country’s banknotes, where it mints coins and refines gold.

The BSP has been upgrading and modernized the facility and built a new P1.2 billion minting facility completed this year.

The 40-year old SPC also has the capacity to produce 3.6 billion pieces of banknotes per year. The BSP has invested over 15 billion to buy two new superline banknotes printer, the first was bid out in 2011 and the second in 2013. The installation and commissioning was completed in 2017. This raised the central bank’s printing capacity from 1.8 billion pieces of banknotes to 3.6 billion at the end of 2017.

To address the higher requirement for currency, the BSP in 2014 approved a 10-year modernization and expansion of its SPC facility. It has an existing modernization program before the plan was proposed.

The 10-year SPC program included the purchase of additional banknotes printers or superlines. The cost of each superlines range from 11 billion to 11.8 billion.

The program also provided for the construction of new facilities and security enhancements within the complex.