BANKERS INSTITUTE OF THE PHILIPPINES, INC. (BAIPHIL) FY 2017–2018 ACCOMPLISHMENTS

In its incessant quest for banking excellence, the Bankers Institute of the Philippines (BAIPHIL) continues to live up to its mission of supporting the banking industry by advocating good governance and enhancing productivity through training and education, and information exchange.

For FY 2017–2018, the Institute continued to fulfill its mandate for its various stakeholders via the accomplishments of its performance commitments, driven by the theme, “Scaling New Heights in Banking Excellence.”

We continued to build BAIPHIL’s franchise, focusing on our flagship programs — Training and Education — delivering relevant and business-driven courses matched with top-notch resource persons, particularly those from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and from our ranks, to support the evolving learning needs of the banking industry, and achieving positive results. This FY, we added 18 new technical courses to the 22 existing programs, for a total of 40. All in all, we ran close to 90 learning sessions. BAIPHIL trained a total of close to 4,000 banking professionals during the current fiscal year.

We did intense course design curation for the nine Finance courses lined-up for accreditation with Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to comply with the format prescribed by PRC. Preparations are now underway for the second submission of the pertinent documents for each course, following the new set of requirements required by PRC. With this accreditation, member banks can now take advantage of these BAIPHIL courses, for the continuing professional education of their employees and/or compilers of financial statements, as required by the Board of Accountancy (BOA).

The groundwork and foundation for these two certification programs have been established, with the Finance and Audit Course Committee at the forefront, in close collaboration with the Institute of Internal Auditors Philippines (IIAP). Course development of Internal Audit for Banks (IAFB) Seminar Series is currently being pursued, with some courses ready for implementation. BAIPHIL and IIAP entered into a Memorandum of Agreement regarding the development and delivery of these programs in October 2017.

Building on a stronger training and education framework, we continued to pursue learning partnerships with our existing and new partners in and outside the banking industry, extending our service beyond the development and delivery of training programs.

The BSP remained to be a formidable ally of BAIPHIL, not only as an active institutional member but also as a generous partner, providing us constant availability of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in support of our training programs, as well as pieces of advice on our projects, such as our Financial Education Programs (FEP) and Certification Programs. For this year, a total of 35 SMEs, 14 of them new additions, brought to our training programs not just the concepts and theories but their vast experiences and maturity in the business.

Taking the lead, our Finance and Audit Course Committee has started seeking guidance from the BSP, particularly in developing the educational program that will support the BSP Governor’s vision for a Certification Program, covering the internal audit professionals of Philippine banks.

We have extended our reach beyond the banking community through building proactive alliances and partnerships, both with our member banks and other organizations in other industries. Under these partnerships, training courses are tailored and delivered exclusively for them. During the year, we successfully forged training partnerships with nine banking institutions, seven of which were newly established this year.

We participated in the ASEAN Banking Conference/ASEAN Banking Council Meeting held from Nov. 23 to 24, 2017 in Da Nang, Vietnam, as part of the Philippine contingent headed by the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP). We also took part in the Association of Asia Pacific Banking Institutes (APABI) Conference from May 9 to 11 in Taipei, Taiwan, where we established and renewed significant contacts with colleagues across the region for continued partnerships and cooperation. During the May 2018 APABI Conference in Taipei, the Chairman of the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance (TABF) handed the APABI flag over to BAIPHIL as the next host institute for the 2020 APABI Conference and Meeting.

BAIPHIL, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Mongolian Bankers Association (MBA) signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on February 13 at the BSP during the BSP-IFC Enhancing Environmental, Social and Governance Practices (ESG) Practices in Philippine Banks sponsored forum on “The Evolving Landscape of Sustainability in Banks: Developments and Trends.” As an offshoot of the MOU, the BSP-IFC sponsored the first Training on Enhancing ESG Practices held from June 28 to 29 at the BSP, as one of the capacity-building initiatives.

We continued to hold the monthly general membership meetings (GMM) with a variety of relevant topics and interesting guest speakers. All these gatherings were well attended, averaging 95 participants per session. We continued to update members on legal, regulatory, leadership and management, and market developments with our regular publications.

Our membership base has been steady, ending the year with a total of 156 Associate Members, 61 Institutional Members, and 80 Associate/Life Sustaining Members.

To improve BAIPHIL’s visibility to its stakeholders and achieve operational efficiency, we engaged the services of a new website domain provider, to enhance the capacity of our existing website to make it more customer-friendly, secured, and mobile responsive. Enhancement is focused on the e-registration and payments for training in order to enhance our accounts receivables management.

To ensure BAIPHIL achieves its vision “to be the leader in the pursuit of banking excellence,” several initiatives were undertaken, in collaboration with an external Organizational Development Consultant, to put in place a Five-year Strategic Plan.

As part of BAIPHIL’s responsibility as a corporate citizen, we have also been very active in strengthening our relationships with the public through our various corporate social responsibility projects.