MANILA --  The Chamber of Thrift Banks (CTB) is confident of growing its loan portfolio this year with the removal of the reserve requirement for the sector. The industry group said it aims to grow loans to around P900 billion.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas ordered the reduction of the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for all commercial, digital, and thrift banks effective March 28, 2025. For thrift banks, RRR is down from 1% to zero.

CTB President Mary Jane Perreras said that removing the reserve requirement will allow them to lend more money to their customers and hopefully also further beef up the economy.

"Now we have a zero reserve requirement, so that loan portfolio, we expect that to be growing kasi we have more liquidity to do more loans," Perreras said at the CTB General Membership meeting in Makati, Friday.

She said they hope to raise the loan portfolio to P900 billion after hitting around P778 billion in 2024. The CTB now aims to expand further in disaster-prone areas as these communities would likely need to borrow money when disaster strikes. The chamber also hopes to increase loans to small and medium-sized enterprises.

"I think yan ang kailangan ngayon. Mga young entrepreneurs natin hopefully the thrift banks will be able to help them out," she added.

Aside from the removal of the reserve requirement, CTB is also happy with the increase of the maximum deposit insurance coverage of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation from P500,000 to P1 million. Perreras said they requested this with the BSP in 2023.

"Trust ng mga savers to put there money into the banks [will increase], especially sabihin mo mga senior citizens, mga retired na talagang ibabangko kanilang retirement, maganda na secured sila," she added.