Citistate Savings Bank doubles its branch network

Citystate Savings Bank, a publicly listed Filipino-Singaporean owned company, announced it has doubled its branch network to 24 from 12. Citystate reported to the Philippines Stock Exchange (PSE) that in the first half of 2007, seven branches were opened in Muntinlupa, Caloocan, Marikina, Blumentritt, Greenhills, Las Pinas, Pasay Road in Makati. Two more branches were recently opened in Antipolo and Katipunan. Alfred A. Cabangon, Citystate president said in a statement, "We expect the rest of the year to be even stronger as we are on track towards attaining out profitability objectives as part of the bank’s three-year expansion program." The total operating expense of the bank increased to the branch network expansion. The bank reported a P3.7 million decrease in net income in the first half. Net income dove to P10.5 million in 2007 from P14.2 million in 2006. Rey D. Delfin, executive vice-president of Citystate said the bank plans to open 30 branches in three years. The expansion plan’s third year will see six more branches opening in 2008. Mr. Delfin said these branches would possibly be located in Metro Manila. "We expect returns to be coming in so we’ll be able to recover our investments from the newly opened branches," Mr. Delfin said in a phone interview. Recently, Citystate Bank also launched City US Dollar Savings Account, which offers an opening deposit of $100 with a 3% return per annum. Mr. Delfin said that Citystate is expecting to recover the investments from the expansions by year-end. "We’ll tap these additional investments to add up the volumes in our business." Meanwhile, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas approved Citystate’s cash dividends share equivalent to 3/10 of 1% of outstanding shares of 72,764,998 with a total of P2.1 million to all stockholders as of September. The bank’s non-performing loans (NPL) remained in the single digit at 2.71% compared with industry standards of 7.8%. As of July, Citystate’s total resources increased to P2.12 billion from P1.95 billion in 2006. - Marian Grace S. Ramos/BusinessWorld