BPI steps up digital banking

Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) President and CEO Cezar P. Consing said the bank’s digitalization efforts is currently going through an upgrade to a version he calls “2.0” in anticipation of higher online and mobile-based banking services even post-COVID19 period, and it will cut costs both for the bank and its clients.

“BPI right now is done with digitalization stage ‘1.0’, we’re moving to ‘2.0’. I’m sure we’ll get to ‘3.0’ after that. But we intend to stay in front of this,” Consing said during the virtual 5th AYALA-Finex Finance Summit Part 2.

In a follow-up email query, Consing said digitalization for BPI will be a continuing process. “We measure progress by the reduction in our cost-to-income ratio, all other things being equal. Broadly, getting from BPI Digital 1.0 to BPI Digital 2.0 should reduce our costto-income ratio by, say, 3 to 5 percentage points, all other things being equal,” he explained.

Banks’ digital transformation, and particularly BPI, depends on technology, people, analytics and as Consing said – “we have to understand what our clients want.”

For Ayala-led BPI, technology represents 15 percent of the bank’s costs. “It’s about 7 or 8 percent of the bank’s revenues so this is a big expense for us,” said Consing during the online summit.

The investment for digitizalization and IT is estimated at ₱4 billion to ₱5 billion per year based on revenues.

Of the bank’s 20,000 work force, 10 percent or 2,000 are directly linked to technology.