the Outsider - PSE Points to Ponder

  Metrobank’s interest engine accelerated in the first half of 2026. BDO, however, paired loan growth with expanding deposits, steadier noninterest revenue and tighter cost control. MANILA — The first-half results of the Philippines’ two largest listed banks offered an instructive contrast in how lenders can produce nearly identical profit growth from very different operating performances. Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company, or Metrobank, reported the faster expansion in its core interest-earning business. Its net interest income rose 12.8 percent from a year earlier, outpacing the 10.6 percent increase reported by BDO Unibank. But BDO’s overall result was more balanced. It grew loans and deposits together, increased noninterest income and held expense growth below the rate of revenue expansion. Metrobank, by contrast, contended with shrinking deposits, a sharp decline in trading-related revenue and faster growth in operating costs. The result was an unusual near tie at the bot...

  The Philippine banking giant’s core interest earnings increased in the first half of 2026. Much of that additional value, however, flowed to employees, service providers and the government rather than landing on the bottom line. At first glance, BDO Unibank’s first-half results appeared uneventful. The country’s largest bank reported ₱40.85 billion in net profit for the six months ended June 30, barely changed from ₱40.76 billion a year earlier. Earnings attributable to shareholders of the parent bank increased just 0.3 percent, while basic earnings per share edged up by one cent, to ₱7.56.  But beneath that nearly static bottom line, a more dynamic redistribution of economic value was taking place. BDO’s net interest income—the difference between what it earned from loans and investments and what it paid to depositors and other creditors—rose 10.6 percent, to ₱108.51 billion. Even after the bank set aside substantially more money for possible credit losses, net interest inc...

  Ayala-backed Mynt and SM-controlled BDO Unibank, Inc. are two very different machines for turning Filipino credit demand into profit. One earns fat fintech spreads. The other survives on scale, funding discipline and clean loans. Call it the new arithmetic of Philippine finance. On one side is Mynt, the GCash parent in which Ayala Corporation increased exposure through AC Ventures Holding Corp., helping push Mynt’s valuation to about US$5 billion before the planned IPO. On the other hand is BDO Unibank, Inc., the country’s largest bank and the crown jewel of the SM financial ecosystem, with SM Investments Corporation disclosed as BDO’s largest common shareholder at 40.60% as of end-2025.  At first glance, the comparison looks unfair. BDO Unibank, Inc. is a universal bank with about ₱3.8 trillion in gross customer loans in the first quarter of 2026. Mynt’s CreditTech loan portfolio was only about ₱64.1 billion as of March 31, 2026. BDO is the aircraft carrier; Mynt’s lend...

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...

BDO Unibank Inc., the banking arm long central to the Sy family’s financial empire, entered 2026 with a familiar distinction: it remained a powerful dividend machine for SM Investments Corp. Yet beneath the comfort of record earnings and rising payouts, the country’s largest bank is showing signs that the next leg of dividend growth may be harder won. BDO posted record net income of ₱87.2 billion in 2025 , up 6% from the prior year, as its balance sheet continued to expand across loans, deposits and investment securities. Total resources climbed 11% to ₱5.4 trillion , loans rose 13% to ₱3.7 trillion , deposits increased 10% to ₱4.2 trillion , and equity advanced 12% to ₱644.1 billion . The bank also remained the Philippines’ largest lender by assets, loans, deposits and trust assets, with 1,994 domestic branches and 7,716 ATMs, CDMs and related machines as of end-2025. For SM Investments, which holds 40.6% of BDO’s common shares , the bank remains a major source of recurring income....