S&P affirms PNB rating

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed the credit rating of taipan Lucio Tan’s Philippine National Bank (PNB) amid the strong asset quality of the lender.

The debt watcher said it had affirmed its ‘B+’ long-term and ‘B’ short-term counterparty credit ratings as well as its ‘axBB’ long-term and ‘axB’ short-term ASEAN regional scale ratings on PNB.

S&P also affirmed the positive outlook on the bank’s long-term counterparty.

“The positive outlook reflected expectations the bank could sustainably strengthen its asset quality over the next 12 to 18 months owing to its efforts to improve its underwriting standards,” S&P said.

PNB’s earnings grew 27 percent to P4.7 billion in the first nine months of 2015. Net interest income rose five percent to P13.23 billion due to higher earnings from loans and receivables as well as trading and investment securities.

The bank expanded its loan portfolio by 13 percent to P329 billion, propelled by its strong corporate and commercial or small and medium sized enterprises lending business.

Interest income from loans and receivables went up by 12.4 percent to P12.6 billion while interest earnings from trading and investment securities jumped 17 percent to P2.95 billion.

This was more than enough to offset the 55 percent drop in interest income from deposits with banks and others.

Interest expense increased 13.4 percent to P3.05 billion.

Operating expenses declined by about one percent to P13.89 billion.

Total assets reached P653.5 billion as of the end of September last year and the bank continued to enhance its asset deployment as asset balances moved from cash and other cash Items.

PNB, the country’s fourth largest private commercial bank in terms of assets and deposits, has 662 branches and 923 ATMs nationwide.

It has the most extensive international presence among Philippine banks with 75 overseas branches, representative offices, remittance centers, and subsidiaries in key cities in the US, Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.