CEO INTERVIEW Bank of the Philippine Islands’ President talks reinvention and digital ambitions

CEO TG Limcaoco says that 6 million of BPI’s clients now use digital channels.

For Southeast Asia’s oldest bank, reinvention and innovation are the key ingredients to how it remains one of the Philippines’ biggest banks since its establishment over 170 years ago.

In the modern era, Bank of the Philippine Islands has set its sights on an ambitious goal: to be the undisputed leader in digital banking.

“The pandemic has accelerated digital banking adoption among Filipinos, and all indicators say that there’s simply no turning back. If we truly want to be the Philippines’ undisputed banking leader, we must ensure that each and every one of our customers, without exception, has digital access to our services and products,” Jose Teodoro “TG” Limcaoco, president and CEO of BPI, told Asian Banking & Finance in an exclusive interview.

Since assuming the leadership of BPI in 2022, Limcaoco has pushed BPI’s position as a pioneer in local banking — the very quality that has allowed it to thrive in every era.

“We doubled down on digitalisation over the past two decades as online banking transformed into mobile banking. We brought banking services that were only available on desktops to smartphones,” he said.

“BPI’s spirit of innovation has enabled the bank to become a pioneer in various aspects of banking. In the 1980s, BPI launched the Express Teller system and introduced the first 24-hour ATM service in the Philippines. We later on launched the country’s first debit card system. In the 1990s, BPI began offering phone banking and then introduced Express Online,” Limcaoco added.

More recently, BPI introduced the mobile wallet in 2012 for retail payments, the country’s first bank-initiated contactless payment system.

Its latest reinvention has borne fruit in 2022. BPI reported a record net income of PHP39.6b (US$716.36m) in 2022, 66% higher than in 2021, thanks to strong loan growth, higher net interest margin, and lower provisions. In its most recent quarterly results, BPI posted a net income of PHP12.1b (US$218.77m), 52% higher than in the first quarter of 2022.

As of December 2022, BPI has nearly six million clients enrolled in digital channels and nearly four million active users across all digital platforms, and has facilitated 375 million transactions.

Limcaoco sat down with Asian Banking & Finance to share more about BPI in the modern banking era, his thoughts on the future of financial services across the region, and what inspires him in his daily life as CEO of Southeast Asia’s oldest bank.

What’s it like to be the CEO and president of a bank that bears such a long history?

As the President and CEO of the oldest bank in Southeast Asia, I am acutely aware of the challenges that come

We must navigate a rapidly changing regulatory landscape that demands greater transparency, accountability, and compliance with leading an institution with such a long and storied history. We have weathered many changes over the years, including wars, economic crises, and political upheavals. However, the current era of massive digital and regulatory changes presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities that we must address to remain relevant and competitive.

On one hand, we must embrace digital transformation and leverage emerging technologies to improve our operational efficiency, enhance customer experiences, and enable innovative products and services. This requires significant investments in technology and talent, as well as a willingness to adapt our business models and processes to the digital age.

On the other hand, we must navigate a rapidly changing regulatory landscape that demands greater transparency, accountability, and compliance. We must be vigilant in ensuring that we meet these requirements whilst maintaining our commitment to customer confidentiality and trust.

Tell us more about yourself. What’s your career like? What led you to the path of becoming a banker, and eventually, the head of BPI?

Many people assume that my entire career was spent in banking and finance, which is fair, given that most senior bankers do begin and end their professional lives in the field — in some cases, within the same institution that gave them their first jobs. How I got here is actually through a series of personal and professional reinventions.

After having earned my Mathematical Sciences degree, I started out in Silicon Valley as a programmer/analyst in a tech firm. This was the early ’80s and tech was the industry to be in. With Stanford (where I studied) being just a stone’s throw from The Valley, going into tech felt like the natural thing to do.

It would have been the comfortable thing for me to stay. I enjoyed it well enough, and coding remains a casual hobby of mine. However, my early love for banking and finance never really died out.

I’ve wanted to be a banker since I was young, due to my innate love for numbers and having been raised by a banker dad. So, when I had the opportunity to take postgraduate studies, I opted for an MBA rather than a master’s in computer science or engineering as many of my peers did, in hopes of reinventing my career path towards finance.

That Wharton MBA did lead to my first banking job in New York. My stint at JPMorgan was soon followed by an invitation to return home as a manager in corporate finance with BPI.