Best bank - Bank of the Philippine Islands
Best equity house - Deutsche Regis
Best debt house - JPMorgan
Best M&A house - ING
Banks in the Philippines face faltering GDP growth, weakening domestic demand and a lack of quality corporate credits to lend to. This has meant a decline in loan balances. The bank that once again stands out from the crowd in such a challenging market is Bank of the Philippine Islands. While other banks' corporate loan portfolios shrank, BPI's grew by 4.4%. It continues to dominate the retail market too. It's still the leader in the mortgage market, with a 20.1% market share, and also leads in electronic banking. It has the largest branch and ATM networks and the largest share in debit card transactions. It also leads in consumer lending.
Those equity houses that survive rely on secondary market trading volumes. The best equity house in such stressful times is Deutsche Regis, which built market share to reach 8.5% in 2002.
There was little variety in the Philippine debt markets in the past year. And the headlines were dominated by the sovereign's regular forays into the international bond markets to fund its ballooning budget deficit.