NONPERFORMING LOANS (NPL) held by quasi-banks reached P14.081 billion as of end-2021, resulting in an NPL ratio of 9.9%, based on data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
These bad loans increased by 4.1% from the P13.523 billion booked as of end-2020. The NPL ratio inched up from the 9.6% seen a year earlier, but was lower than the 10.3% as of end-September.
Meanwhile, the industry’s gross loan portfolio rose by 0.7% to P141.976 billion as of end-2021 from P140.948 billion a year earlier.
Nonperforming assets (NPAs), which include real and other properties acquired, increased by 2.9% to P15.432 billion as of December 2021 from P15.004 billion a year prior.
Restructured loans held by the industry amounted to P2.106 billion in 2021, higher by 67% from the P1.26 billion seen as of end-December 2020.
Quasi-banks beefed up their loan loss reserves, which reached P5.646 billion at the end of last year. This climbed by 27.5% from the P4.43 billion logged at end-2020.
As of end-2021, quasi-banks’ loan loss reserves were equivalent to 4% of their portfolio, up from 3.1% a year earlier. With this, the NPL coverage ratio improved to 40.1% from 32.8%.
Meanwhile, quasi-banks’ allowance on NPAs rose by a quarter to P5.816 billion from P4.637 billion.
This brought the NPA coverage ratio to 37.7% from 30.9%.
BSP-supervised financial institutions with quasi-banking functions include financing companies and investment houses. — Luz Wendy T. Noble