YUCHENGCO-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) announced on Tuesday that its trust and investments arm booked its highest assets under management (AUM) during the first three months of the year.
Robert B. Ramos, RCBC Trust and Investments group head, said its AUM stood at P147.49 billion by end March, a 4.6 percent growth year on year and a record high volume for the group.
Ramos said asset growth was largely driven by strategic partnerships across other business groups of the bank, like wealth management and retail banking group.
“Over the years, our IMA (investments managed accounts) business has been one of the primary drivers of our AUM,” the executive said. “The continued confidence of our customers with our services and improving market conditions enabled us to achieve continuous growth.”
AUMs refer to the total value of assets that an investment management company manages on behalf of its clients. These assets can include a wide range of financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other types of investments.
Ramos is also optimistic about the bank’s future growth potential, citing the lender’s recent partnership with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC) Group.
SMBC is one of the largest banks in Japan and is the commercial banking arm of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group. In November last year, SMBC increased its shareholding at RCBC from 4.999 percent to 20 percent.
“Now, we have partnerships with SMBC as well. We believe that SMBC can also provide us access to new products. These new funds can in turn be made available to our client base. We also hope to learn their best practices so that we may implement them here in RCBC as well,” Ramos said.
RCBC shares closed at P23.55, 30-centavos lower than the previous day’s close.