the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

Q1 2026 underscored why BDO still dominates in scale, while BPI leads in efficiency and returns. In Philippine banking, size and finesse rarely travel in equal measure. BDO Unibank, the country’s largest lender, resembles a financial archipelago unto itself: vast, deposit-rich and deeply embedded in the cash flows of households, malls, merchants and corporations. Bank of the Philippine Islands, older and more patrician, looks less like a sprawl and more like a carefully tuned machine. The first quarter of 2026 offered a useful contrast. Both banks made more money than a year earlier. Both were bruised by bond-market losses. But the manner of their performance revealed two quite different banking models. BDO still won on scale; BPI won on efficiency.  BDO reported net profit of ₱20.2bn , up 2.1% year on year , while BPI earned ₱17.0bn , up about 1.8% . On the surface, the larger bank won. Yet profit is only the first sentence of the story. BDO generated pre-impairment operating...

  The bank still has the bigger margin. The wallet still owns the daily habit. BPI’s free-transfer gambit shows how Ayala’s two finance champions are starting to collide. Ayala’s financial empire now has two engines that look increasingly alike from a customer’s phone. One is BPI , the old bank: deposit-rich, heavily regulated, and still highly profitable. The other is Mynt , the company behind GCash : younger, faster, and built around the daily habit of payments, transfers, and app-based finance. In the first quarter of 2026, BPI was still clearly the larger profit machine, generating ₱50.9bn in revenue and ₱17.0bn in net income, while Mynt generated ₱20.9bn in revenue and ₱5.6bn in net income. The margin comparison matters. BPI converted about 33.4% of revenue into net income, while Mynt converted about 26.8% . That makes BPI not only larger than GCash’s parent but also more profitable in terms of net income margin.  Yet the strategic pressure is moving in the other dir...

  In the first quarter of 2026, Bank of the Philippine Islands looked, at first glance, like the sort of bank investors usually like: large, profitable, liquid, and dull in the best possible way. It earned ₱17.02bn in consolidated net income , or ₱16.92bn attributable to BPI shareholders , on ₱57.05bn of interest income . Put differently, BPI generated about ₱0.30 of net income for every ₱1.00 of interest income —a handsome conversion rate for a banking franchise operating in a still-high-rate environment.  Yet the quarter also carried a reminder that banks do not merely lend money; they warehouse duration, credit risk, and market risk. BPI’s reported profit was resilient, rising 1.7% year on year to ₱16.92bn attributable to equity holders , but its total comprehensive income collapsed to ₱2.86bn , from ₱18.34bn a year earlier. The culprit was not a sudden operating loss but a large other comprehensive loss of ₱14.16bn, driven by a ₱13.59bn net fair-value loss on F...

Mynt, the company behind GCash, is showing the power of platform finance: fewer branches, more transactions, and far better profit conversion than two established banks. In 1Q26, it generated more revenue, more than twice the profit, and a much fatter margin than RCBC and Security Bank.   A curious thing happened in Philippine finance in the first quarter of 2026. Two established universal banks, RCBC and Security Bank , each  generated roughly ₱17bn in operating income and about ₱2.7bn in net income. Mynt , the parent company of GCash , reported higher revenue of ₱20.9bn and net income of ₱5.6bn.  The comparison is not perfect. Banks and fintech platforms do different things. RCBC and Security Bank take deposits, make loans, manage capital, absorb credit losses, and operate within a dense regulatory framework. Mynt sits at the heart of the daily financial habits of millions of mobile users. Yet the contrast is revealing. In 1Q26, Mynt was not merely bigger than these tw...

  The GCash parent’s listing would not create cash gains if neither shareholder sells. But it could reveal how much hidden value sits inside Globe and Ayala’s balance sheets. The most interesting asset in Philippine telecoms is no longer a tower, a fiber line, or a slice of spectrum. It is a financial app. Mynt, the company behind GCash, is moving toward a public listing after Globe disclosed that Mynt’s board and shareholders had authorized filings for a potential IPO. The proposed offer is expected to represent about 12% of Mynt’s post-IPO capital , through a mix of primary and secondary shares. Reuters earlier reported that Mynt was seeking a valuation of at least US$8bn , although the final price, timing, and structure remain subject to regulators and market conditions. For Globe Telecom and Ayala Corporation , the IPO is not simply a chance for Mynt to raise capital. It is a moment of revelation. Both companies already own pieces of Mynt. Both already show those stakes somewh...

  Security Bank widened its net interest margin and lifted core spread income in the first quarter, but higher credit-loss provisions, trading and foreign-exchange losses, and unrealized FVOCI mark-to-market losses kept the results from becoming a clean earnings-growth story. For a bank, a wider net interest margin is usually the closest thing to good weather. Loans and securities earn more than deposits and borrowings cost; the balance sheet breathes easier; profits should follow. In the first quarter of 2026, Security Bank Corporation seemed to enjoy just such a climate. Its net interest margin widened to 5.36% , from 4.51% a year earlier, while net interest income jumped 27.6% to ₱15.16bn . Interest income rose to ₱19.92bn , but the larger story was on the funding side: interest expense fell to ₱4.76bn from ₱6.76bn . Yet the weather did not hold. The bank’s bottom line slipped. Net income fell to ₱2.70bn , down from ₱2.82bn a year earlier; earnings per share declined to ₱3.5...