The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported a net income of P83.82 billion in 2022, up by P49.1 billion or 141.4 percent compared to P34.72 billion in 2021, based on the latest unaudited statement of income and expense.
BSP had a huge net gain of P83.36 billion from its foreign exchange (FX) transactions due to US dollar selling to prop up the depreciated peso in 2022. These are realized gains on FX rates fluctuations. In 2021, BSP’s FX gains only amounted to P3.26 billion.
Last year, BSP posted revenues of P141.30 billion, down by 14.8 percent compared to the previous year’s P165.89 billion.
Interest income which are trading gains, fees, penalties and other operating income, increased to P153.22 billion from P115.45 billion. Miscellaneous revenues contracted to P9.11 billion compared to an income of P50.44 billion in 2021.
Expenses, meanwhile, reached P140.79 billion in 2022, up by 28.8 percent from 2021’s P109.33 billion. The BSP pay high costs for its banknotes production and coin minting cost, as well as taxes and licenses fees.
Last year, the BSP also had higher interest expenses of P85.63 billion versus P60.34 billion in 2022. Other expenses amounted to P55.16 billion, higher than the previous year’s P48.99 billion.
BSP’s total assets declined to P7.247 trillion in 2022, down by 4.3 percent from same time in 2021 of P7.576 trillion. Bulk of these assets are BSP’s international reserves which have been depleted due to BSP’s defense of the peso against the strong US dollar.
The cental bank’s liabilities also decreased by 4.1 percent to P7.136 trillion from P7.439 trillion. Liabilities are deposits such as the term deposit facility and the
overnight deposit facility, and currency issues.
Meanwhile, the BSP’s net worth amounted to P110.87 billion compared to P136.70 billion in 2021. The BSP’s surplus or reserves was also lower at P50.87 billion from P86.22 billion.
As of this latest income report, the BSP has received an additional P10 billion in capitalization, from P50 billion to P60 billion. Under the amended BSP Charter, the central bank’s capitalization should be P200 billion.
Under the law, the central bank’s capital base will be funded solely from the declared dividends of the central bank.
If the BSP will contribute 100 percent of its dividends to the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), it will not have its full capital for another 14 to 17 years.
BSP Governor Felipe M. Medalla has said that at the moment, the independent central bank has no urgent need for fresh capital. For one, he explained that with a relatively stable exchange rate market – and this was mainly because of BSP’s policy rate hikes and US dollar selling in 2022 -- the central bank’s financial condition is stable.
Based on the proposed MIF, the BSP will give up 100 percent dividend payments for the first two years of the wealth fund and in the succeeding years, it will remit 50 percent of its declared dividends to the MIF while the remaining 50 percent will go to the National Government until the increase in the BSP capitalization has been fully
paid. Thereafter, the BSP will remit 100 percent of its declared dividends to
the wealth fund.