The bank made a record P7.6 billion in profit in 2024.

"Because of the demographic dividend, given that we have a young workforce, they are looking to, of course, move up in their careers," said EastWestBank executive director Isabelle Gotianun-Yap. "But also, that means greater income for them and also in their life stages."

"A lot of people, of course, from starting their jobs, would want to start having personal loans, start buying their first car, their first home. So, a lot of the dreams that they want for their future needs to be financed as well," she explained.

"Rather than having it all in cash, it makes sense to actually finance that, and that's where banks like EastWest come in," she said.

Gotianun-Yap said 80 percent of the bank's loan portfolio was consumer-focused.

She said that she sees Filipinos plowing more money into the economy this year.

"Remittances are also projected to grow 3 percent this year. That means that there really is still appetite, I think, for consumers to still continue to plow money into the economy," she said.

"We've also seen the BSP, for example, drop reserve rate requirements for banks, so that also injects more liquidity into the system for banks to be able to lend out to consumers in loans," she added.

ANC, 26 March 2025