Union Bank of the Philippines or UBP completed its P12-billion stock rights offering to support growth in consumer and corporate loans from its fully-digital bank, its disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange said Monday.
A total of 210.97 million common shares were subscribed, with high volumes from Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Social Security System and Insular Life.
The Aboitiz-led bank said the offering was oversubscribed at ₱56.88 per share and 1 rights share for each 10.153 existing common shares. The offering was opened for subscription on 12 January.
New shares were listed in the stock exchange on Monday, bringing UBP’s total outstanding shares to over 2.35 billion.
Proceeds from the offering will be used as capital for UnionDigital, its fully-digital bank subsidiary, which started operating on 18 July last year.
Additional capital for UnionDigital
“Specifically, UBP will deploy additional capital to UnionDigital, support loan availments, that is, retail loans and corporate and commercial loans by customers,” the PSE disclosure said.
UnionDigital is among the six fully-digital banks authorized by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas which aims to expand the number of Filipinos with bank accounts to 70 percent of the population this year.
Fully-digital banks aim to deliver convenient and wider service, with lower processing fees and 24-hour service through smartphone, among others.
“The strong participation of our existing shareholders on our stock rights offering, reflects their trust in the value that will be created by executing our strategies,” UBP President Edwin Bautista said.
“With the completion of our SRO, we aim to pursue our long-term objective to become a leader in retail banking in the Philippines,” he added.