Unionbank urges SMES to use digital platform

UNION Bank of the Philippines is urging small-scale and mediumscale enterprises (SMES) to maximize the features of its “SME Banking” application amid lockdown measures against the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement on Thursday, the Aboitiz-led bank said that the digital platform is seen to provide help to SMES by offering complete banking needs.

Among them are digital account opening, mobile check deposits, issuance of bank certificates, real-time fund transfers to any other local bank, tax payments and payroll crediting.

“Everything is all online, and the good thing about this is that it’s streamlined since as an e-commerce company, you’ll have a great end-to-end, integrated e-commerce solution,” said Alex Dizon, product innovator for SME Business Banking at Unionbank.

Unionbank SME platforms head Jaypee Soliman, meanwhile, said that the SME Banking app shows that the bank has been exerting efforts to stay at the forefront of digital transformation.

“Our customers who have been with us for a long time can attest to the countless changes that our interface has gone through since 1998, when we first introduced online banking,” Soliman said. “And we still strive to innovate as much as we can, because our realization is that we have to provide the correct facilities and the correct technology so that customers can bank wherever they want to bank.”

Recently, the Unionbank financial technology arm, UBX Philippines, said that the application volume in the firm’s multi-lender online marketplace for SME loans—seekcap—rose by over 300 percent since the pandemic started.

UBX President John Januszczak stressed the need to extend credit to SMES because they comprise 99.5 percent of the businesses in the country and over 60 percent of the employment. To date, he said that Seekcap has received half a billion of loan applications.

Unionbank saw its net earnings slide by 6 percent to P4.5 billion in the first half from P4.79 billion a year ago for the same period. Topline figures in the first six months, meanwhile, surged 55 percent to P22.1 billion year-on-year on the back of improved net interest income and higher trading gains.

On Thursday, the shares of Unionbank ended flat at P54.20 each amid the 0.80-percent drop for the benchmark index. The amount of stocks traded for the day amounted to P1.71 million.