Nestor V. Tan and Fabian S. Dee have been given a fresh mandate to lead electronic banking consortium BancNet as chairman of the Board and president, respectively.
During their annual meeting held Thursday, June 9, BancNet shareholders elected the company’s directors for the term 2022-2023. Re-elected with Tan and Dee were: Dennis C. Bancod, senior executive vice president of RCBC; Cecilia C. Borromeo, president and CEO of Land Bank; John Cary L. Ong, executive vice president of Security Bank; Noel A. Santiago, senior vice president of BPI; and William C. Whang, president of China Bank.
Tan is currently the president and CEO of BDO while Dee is the president of Metrobank.
Also elected to the 15-man Board were new directors Henry Rhoel R. Aguda, chief technology and operations officer of Union Bank; Kathleen Charmaine H. Hernandez, transaction banking director of Standard Chartered Bank; Eduardo J. Katigbak, Jr., president of Equicom Savings Bank; Wilfredo E. Rodriguez, Jr., executive vice president of Asia United Bank; Cecilio Paul D. San Pedro, president and CEO of Sterling Bank of Asia; Elfren Antonio S. Sarte, president and CEO of Robinsons Bank; Gerardo Susmerano, executive vice president of East West Bank; and Jose Arnulfo A. Veloso, president and CEO of PNB.
Dee told the stockholders that BancNet is “in a superior position as we prepare for the gradual exit from the pandemic and consequent recovery of the economy, increased consumption and higher demand for services. In particular, we have embraced the use of technology in both our internal business operations as well as our development and delivery of services to our members and participants”.
One of the new technologies that BancNet is harnessing is the cutting edge Vocalink system to which BancNet fully migrated instaPay last year. instaPay enables the instant digital transfer of funds between accounts in different banks and electronic wallets. With the full migration, BancNet was able to introduce two new use cases of real time fund transfer: payment to a merchant or store and payment to a billing company or biller, both interoperable using the national QR code standard. This world-class infrastructure also gives BancNet the capability to process real time transactions other than payments and remittances to adapt to changing consumer needs and behavior.
Dee also revealed that BancNet is “collaborating closely with Philippine Payments Management, Inc. (PPMI), the instaPay Automated Clearing House (ACH), and the Bangko Sentral to enable cross-border payments between Philippines and Singapore and Malaysia. At the same time, we will implement Trace and Alert, a fraud analytics tool, to warn participants against potential money laundering attempts.”
During their organizational meeting, the new Board also elected the following key officers of the company: Elmarie S. Reyes, CEO; Jose Arnulfo A. Veloso, Treasurer; and Agnes H. Maranan, Corporate Secretary.
The Board also appointed the members of the Operations Committee which is responsible for translating Board-defined policies into detailed operating policies and procedures. They are: Dennis C. Bancod (RCBC), Allan V. Bornas (Land Bank), Reynaldo Burgos (PNB), Ralph Cadiz (Sterling Bank), Marie Carolina L. Chua (China Bank), Eduardo Katigbak, Jr. (Equicom Savings), Michael Magbanua (Union Bank), Tomas Victor A. Mendoza (BDO), Wilfredo Rodriguez, Jr. (AUB), Noel A. Santiago (BPI), Salvador Serrano (East West Bank), Richard So (Metrobank), Ricardo G. Torres (Security Bank), Angela D. Vagilidad (Standard Chartered Bank), and Paul Donato Villanueva (Robinsons Bank).
During the stockholders’ meeting, CEO Elmarie Reyes reported that despite bleak predictions based on lockdowns and other mobility restrictions, BancNet generated higher volumes in 2021 vs 2020 from all its channels. Overall, it processed a record total of 1.07 billion interbank transactions. This is 21.56 percent, or 189.77 million, more than the total of 880.12 million transactions in 2020.
This includes 429.14 million instaPay transactions, which grew by 97 percent from 218.30 million, with a total value of Php 2.53 billion, up 121 percent from Php1.14 billion.
The highest ever single-day volume of almost 5 million was recorded on December 15, 2021.
Despite the huge volume, BancNet had high average switch availability rates of 100 percent for the instaPay switch and 99.96 percent for the ATM switch.
BancNet ended the year with 123 members and affiliates whose nationwide network of 22,721 ATMs and 413,896 POS terminals served a card base of 93.86 million.