Union Bank of the Philippines was awarded Best Digital Finance Ecosystem Initiative

• Obtaining a competitive pricing advantage and strong customer adoption on Eonbank’s financial marketplace
• Union Bank of the Philippines offers a faster and more convenient mortgage and home loan experience
• New retail loan platform results in faster turnaround time and rise in loan bookings

Manila, 10 October 2019  - Union Bank of the Philippines received Best Digital Finance Ecosystem Initiative, Application or Programme for ‘Eonbank’s Financial Marketplace’ and Mortgage Product of the Yearat The Asian Banker Philippine Awards 2019. The awards ceremony was held in conjunction with The Asian Banker Finance Philippines, the foremost annual meeting for decision makers in the financial services industry in the Philippines, held on 10^th October at Shangri-La at the Fort, Manila..

Providing Filipinos with a unique frictionless digital banking experience

Launched to the public early this year with a goal of bringing a unique and differentiated digital banking experience to Filipinos, CIMB Bank Philippines has rapidly expanded its offerings and has established itself as the Philippines’ digital banking market leader. To illustrate, CIMB Bank Philippines is able to provide Filipinos with their unique and frictionless digital banking experience through 10 minutes hassle free account opening, zero minimum balance, zero transaction fees and best in market savings interest rates. To wit, CIMB Bank Philippines is setting a new benchmark in digital banking and is now poised to be the fastest growing bank in ASEAN.

From left to right: Foo Boon Ping, managing editor, The Asian Banker; Faith Masekesa, senior researcher for Africa, The Asian Banker; Edwin Bautista, president & CEO, Union Bank of the Philippines; Paolo Baltao, SVP and Eon banking group head, Union Bank of the Philippines; and Wilson Chia, international resource director, The Asian Banker

Obtaining a competitive pricing advantage and strong customer adoption on Eonbank’s financial marketplace

Union Bank of the Philippines interfaces with customers through Eonbank’s digital financial marketplace, which has about 500 merchants. It adopted a seamless e-commerce experience and checkout system in delivering banking services. The marketplace caters not only to bank account holders but to other Visa or Mastercard cardholders as well. Upon and after launch, total account sign-ups grew by 450%. Customers will enjoy browsing through a selection of services like remittance, payments, personal loans and top ups.

The bank won the award for building its own proprietary ecosystem, which results in a competitive pricing advantage along with strong consumer adoption.

Union Bank of the Philippines offers a faster and more convenient mortgage and home loan experience

Based on its new retail loan platform, 2019 has been a record year for Union Bank’s home loans, in terms of bookings. Union Bank home loans offers convenient, fast, and flexible home loan products to clients. The bank was also able to service customers faster than the previous years. Through a paperless process, clients will be able to get an approval of within three minutes upon submission of complete documents. The client may do so by scanning the required documents then submitting these to the retail loan platform.

The bank’s competitive advantage in this market is speed in processing approvals and minimal number of requirements for the client.

New retail loan platform results in faster turnaround time and rise in loan bookings

The retail loan platform was launched on June 2019 to enhance the customer experience of our clients, in line with the bank's initiative to have a straight through process for all of its products. It was also implemented to create a holistic approach in client servicing from approval to release of loan proceeds. Loan bookings for bulk sale, such as condominiums, jumped from an average of P1 billion prior to launch via developers to P2.1 billion. Based on that, they could offer one of the fastest turnaround time to tier one developers. The notice of approval to developers and applicants was brought down from 10 days to 3 minutes and from the release of the loan to disbursement from 5 days to 5 minutes allowing them to get an edge at the developer’s side.

About The Asian Banker

The Asian Banker is the region’s most authoritative provider of strategic business intelligence to the financial services community. The Singapore-based company has offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Manila, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Dubai, as well as representatives in London, New York, and San Francisco. It has a business model that revolves around three core business lines: publications, research services and forums. The company’s website is www.theasianbanker.com

For further information, you may get in touch with:

Mr. Alfred Labicassi
The Asian Banker
Email: alabicassi@theasianbanker.com