Bank of the Philippine Islands said it will “abide by the final decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission” which imposed penalties amounting to P134.62 million in relation to the bank’s executive stock option plan.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, BPI said the SEC “assessed penalties against the Company for violation of Section 8.1 of the SRC in the amount of (P134.62 million), for omitting to secure SEC’s confirmation of exemption from registration for its 7-year Executive Stock Purchase Plan and Executive Stock Option Plan launched in 2013.”

When ask for comment, the bank said it “had omitted to register its 2013-2019 Executive Stock Option Plan and Executive Stock Purchase Plan (ESOP/ESPP), or avail of the appropriate exemption, due to error in good faith related to the application of left-over exempted shares from a previous employee stock program.”

It added that, “The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) assessed penalties for this, and BPI intends to abide by the final decision of the Commission.”

“Rest assured that BPI is committed to being in proper compliance with Philippine regulations,” the bank noted.

BPI reported a 66 percent jump in net income to P39.6 billion last year, from the P23.88 billion in attributable profit earned in 2021, partly boosted by a property sale.

The bank said this was driven by strong loan growth, higher net interest margin and lower provisions, as well as a gain from a property sale in the second quarter.

Excluding the impact of the one-off gain from the property sale, net income stood at P35.9 billion, up 50.2 percent.

For the fourth quarter of the year, the Bank recorded net income of P9.1 billion, up 41.4 percent year on year and down 10.3 percent quarter on quarter, on higher revenue growth and also lower provisions recognized.

BPI generated record revenue of P118.5 billion, up 21.7 percent year-on-year, boosted by the 22.2 percent growth in net interest income to P85.1 billion, on the back of asset base expansion and improvement in net interest margin by 28 bps to 3.59 percent.

Non-interest income grew 20.3 percent to P33.5 billion, primarily from the one-off gain on the property sale, higher fees from the credit cards business and transaction banking services, as well as gains from foreign exchange transactions.