BPI offers online investment services

By Doris Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:53:00 04/30/2011

THE PRIVATE BANKING unit of Bank of the Philippine Islands has rolled out the country’s first full-service online investment platform, seeking to harness the Internet to broaden participation in its managed funds.

BPI asset management and trust group—a leading wealth management unit in the Philippines with close to P600 billion in assets under management—launched Tuesday night a web-based facility that allows investors to initiate mutual funds and unit investment trust fund (UITF) transactions through the Internet.

Through this platform which can be accessed at www.bpiassetmanagement.com, investors can access portfolio information, explore further investment opportunities, subscribe to additional funds, redeem investments and make regular contributions online.

“Customer behavior and technology are driving the way financial and investment services are conducted and with the pace at which technology is moving, we should always be one step ahead,” says BPI senior vice president and chief investment officer Maria Theresa Marcial Javier in the press briefing.

This online investment platform resides in the same system architecture as BPI’s pioneering electronic banking facility and complements an existing online stock trading system which caters to those who prefer to manage their own equities portfolio.

“We’ve migrated our investment facility online to take advantage of the pervasive Internet technology that will empower our investor clients to transact anywhere at any time at their convenience. This frees up more of their precious time that could be spent on other important business agenda or with their families,” Javier says.

Of BPI’s close to P600 billion in assets under management, around P100 billion is in the form of either mutual funds or UITFs. The unit has about 70,000 accounts, 90 percent of which are held by individuals or retail investors.

Average fund investment per individual client at BPI’s unit is still high at P2-P3 million but with the bank having reduced the minimum investment required to enter its funds to P10,000 (from P50,000) and the rollout of this online investment platform, Javier sees an enormous potential moving forward.

BPI president Aurelio Montinola III says: “We’re quite excited about this. Not only does this open investment capacity to Metro Manila clients. It opens to provincial and overseas clients which comprise a large community. And it’s going to be an active community.”

The bank’s growing customer base in its traditional services also offers a lot of opportunities for cross-selling investment products to that certain segment of clients with excess funds which they wouldn’t be satisfied to keep in low-yielding deposits. BPI now has 4.3 million customer base, which it aims to grow to five million by the year’s end.

Of BPI’s total customer base, overseas Filipino clients number around one million. About $4.8 billion worth of remittances flowed into the country through the BPI channel last year, giving it a market share of 25 percent, based on bank estimates.

By using technology to widen its investor base, BPI, the country’s most profitable bank, also seeks to increase fee-based earnings that complement its interest earnings from lending.

BPI completed at end-March its purchase of the local fund management business of Dutch financial giant ING, an acquisition that made it the biggest player in the local trust industry. This deal also made it the largest employer of trust and investment professionals in the country. The group is now the manager, advisor and administrator of a total of 32 investment funds in the country.