BDO Partners with Shizuoka Bank
Makati—(PHStocks)—Japan’s 10th largest bank, Shizuoka Bank Ltd (SB), has partnered with BDO Unibank Inc. (PSE: BDO) to service the banking requirements of its clients should they decide to expand their operations in the Philippines.
The partnership was sealed through the signing of a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday. BDO’s partnership with SB is the first case of a Japanese Regional Bank (JRB) entering into a second non-exclusive MoU with a Philippine bank.
According to SB, most of its clients interested to invest in the Philippines are small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Given BDO’s strong foothold across all markets, SB believes the former has the strongest capability to provide its clients the products and services suitable to their needs.
SB is the 10th Japanese bank that has tied up with BDO to date, joining the other eight JRBs which have aligned independently or under the Japan Bank for International Cooperation in 2013, and commercial bank Aozora Bank Ltd, which sealed a MoU with BDO last May.
SB ranks 3rd among the 64 JRBs based in the Shizuoka prefecture, which has progressed into a leading manufacturing area. SB provides various banking and other financial services covering not only its home region but also Japan’s three major economic centers–Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya. It currently operates 174 branches and 25 sub-branches in Japan; three overseas branches in Los Angeles, New York and Hong Kong; two representative offices in Shanghai and Singapore; and a subsidiary in Brussels.
BDO, for its part, is a full-service universal bank that provides a wide range of corporate and retail banking services, including traditional loan and deposit products as well as treasury, trust banking, investment banking, private banking, rural banking, cash management, leasing and finance, remittance, insurance, retail cash cards, and credit card services.
It is ranked as the Philippines’ largest bank in terms of total assets, loans, deposits, capital, and trust funds under management as of 31 March 2016.