UNIONBANK of the Philippines (UnionBank) is eyeing to complete 13 more of its digital hubs by the end of this year to shape the market into digital banking.
UnionBank President and CEO Edwin R. Bautista told reporters last week that apart from its Ark branch in Makati City, three more Arks will be set up nationwide with one Ark each for Cebu, Davao and Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig by year-end.
The Ark, UnionBank’s first fully digital branch, is at the Insular Life Building at the corner of Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas Street in Makati City, and was opened in September last year.
UnionBank earlier said it has seen a 44-percent digital adoption rate from its over 3 million customers, to date.
“[We’re putting up] 14 by the end of the year. There will be four big Arks like this and ten smaller versions,” Bautista said. “The three big ones will be in Cebu, Davao and another one in BGC.”
As for the other 10 digital hubs, he noted that UnionBank will be renovating its existing branches to make smaller versions of the Ark instead of constructing new branches.
“We are not building new branches anymore but we are spending to renovate the old ones into the Ark,” he added.
Bautista said the push for customers to shift to digital banking would provide more deposit balance to the bank, among others. For one, customers won’t withdraw all their money from automated teller machines (ATM), which means that they’ll use it to buy things through a point-of-sale (POS) terminal, resulting to the bank making 1 percent to 1.5 percent from the transaction in virtual discounts, he explained.
“A digital customer has four times the deposit balance compared to a nondigital. Remember this number—four, six and 12. Four times the deposits, six times the number of transactions and, more important, we make 12 times more than the average of a nondigital customer,” he said.