BPI to promote SME loans in Cebu and Visayas

Junie Veloso, segment head of BPI business banking segment, says they are aggressively promoting loans to small and medium enterprises in Cebu and the rest of the Visayas. /Irene R. Sino Cruz

CEBU CITY, Philippines–The Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI) targets an increase in the number of clients for its loan services for small and medium enterprises.

Junie Veloso, head of BPI’s newly-formed business banking segment, said most of those who availed loans in this segments were existing bank clients.

Veloso said they would be doing aggressive marketing to increase availment of their loans. Majority of their SME clients, including those in Cebu, have yet to avail of their loans, he said.

Most of them only have deposits, he added.

“We believe that SMEs play a key role in nation building. The Cebu SME market has a huge growth potential and we want to be there when it happens,” says Veloso.

However, he admits that they have to come up with a new score card to speed up loan processing and approval.

“We are looking at a new 30-day turnaround time for standard applications, and even faster for certain products,” Veloso says.

To accomplish this goal, BPI has tapped risk management firm Tongdun International to develop an artificial intelligence solutions for faster automated lending processes.

The Chinese company will also come up with an optimized credit scoring model specifically for the SMEs.

Veloso says this will help BPI achieve faster processing and approval of SME loans./dcb