An aerial view of Subic Bay Freeport, an emerging maritime hub and home of one of the world's largest shipbuilders.

Accounting for more than 80 percent of the Philippine's financial system's resources, the country's banking sector has continued to show resilience for the last decade.

Banco De Oro Unibank Inc (BDO), the leading commercial bank, has notably shown strong resilience in the market, celebrating a good clawback of income during 2010 from the recession years of 2008 and 2009.

The result of a merger heralded as unprecedented in size and scale in the Philippines' banking industry, BDO now represents a robust and forward-thinking bank, with an excellent track record for management, products and performance that have won it a string of prestigious regional and international awards in the last four years - most recently it received major citations from the The Asset Triple A Awards 2011 of the Hong Kong-based investment magazine The Asset.

With a strong regional and international presence, BDO has offices in southeast Asia, including Hong Kong, among more than 20 overseas subsidiaries and countless other partners for remittances.

Dynamic BDO President Nestor Tan said: "Most of our international business is focused on overseas Filipino workers to generate businesses. For southeastern Asia, our growth plan is to generate value through cross border transactions with the Philippines. This includes trades remittances and inward/outward investments coming to and from the Philippines."

A member of the SM Group, one of the country's largest conglomerates, the bank provides a complete array of industry-leading products and services to the retail and corporate markets including lending (corporate, middle market, SME and consumer), deposit-taking, foreign exchange, brokering, trust and investments, credit cards, corporate cash management and remittances.

It also offers leasing and financing, investment banking, private banking, Bancassurance, insurance brokerage and stock brokerage services through its subsidiaries.

"As a nationwide bank, we go after most of the market segments: the large corporate, the Filipino-Chinese community, the middle market, Filipino consumers; all of them have very different backgrounds."

BDO's institutional strengths and value-added products and services hold the key to its successful business relationships with customers. On the front line, its branches remain at the forefront of setting high standards as a sales and service-oriented, customer-focused force.

Through selective acquisitions and organic growth, BDO has positioned itself for increased balance sheet strength and continuing expansion into new markets.

"Banking is a commodities business where everything stands on service and relationships. For us, it is a business of trust - we try to build relationships with clients from all sectors as much as we can and nurture that."

BDO also takes its corporate social responsibility seriously, with the BDO Foundation helping develop local communities through housing, education and work initiatives.

"I am proud of what our team has been able to achieve," Nestor said. "In 1997, for example, we were the 19th largest commercial bank. Now we have 26 percent of the market share. Our team is energetic, committed and competent."

To conclude, he said: "Investors should seriously consider the Philippines. We have a stable economy, a good workforce and a vibrant investment community. If they ever want to invest, BDO hopes to be their first port of call. We have expertise, our own network and contacts and we can guide them."

The bank recently added China UnionPay card to its payment network in the Philippines.

(China Daily 08/03/2011 page19)