UnionBank Set For Next Digital Banking Step

Aboitiz-led Union Bank of the Philippines is accelerating its digital banking business with a “better normal” strategy to attract new clients while they fast-track development of online-only products and utilize blockchain solutions for real-time services.

- Lee C. Chipongian

UnionBank, which has styled itself as a digital bank pre-pandemic, is preparing to get a digital bank license from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) after the regulator released the circular a week ago. Based on this new bank category, only those with digital bank license can call itself a digital bank.

UnionBank president and CEO, Edwin R. Bautista, in a virtual briefing Wednesday said that generally, the regulation covering digital banks are acceptable but he would have preferred that the central bank has allowed for higher foreign ownership as UnionBank also want to go regional. Foreign individuals or foreign banks can own up to 40 percent of a local digital bank.

Bautista said the foreign ownership could have been more and there were suggestions to increase the shares of stock of qualified foreign banks. But at the moment, the 40 percent is “probably OK right now.” It would still “allow us to get a foreign strategic partner, but we may want to list it later on so if there were some leeway for us allowing more foreign ownership, that will improve the liquidity of the stock (and) it will allow us to list in other jurisdictions,” he added.