October 24, 2021 | 00h00
MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine unit of consumer credit provider Home Credit Group expects a full recovery next year from the impact of the pandemic as loan disbursements resume and default rates rise. ‘steadily improve.
Zdenek Jankovsky, director and treasurer of Home Credit Philippines, told the company’s virtual 8th anniversary celebration that Home Credit had disbursed 28 billion pesos in loans at the end of September, surpassing last year’s loan releases. .
Due to uncertainties caused by the global health crisis, Jankovsky said that Home Credit disbursed loans in the Philippines fell almost 55% to 23 billion pesos in 2020 from 51 billion pesos in 2019.
“I believe that in 2022 we will already catch up with our numbers from 2019,” he said. Home Credit Philippines is part of Home Credit BV of the Czech Republic founded in 1997 and now present in 11 countries.
The Philippines emerged from the pandemic-induced recession with gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 11.8% in the second quarter, down from a contraction of 3.9% in the first quarter.
The country entered recession as GDP fell a record 9.6% last year, ending 21 consecutive years of positive growth.
Policymakers see GDP rebounding with growth of four to five percent this year and seven to nine percent next year.
“We took the pandemic as a catalyst and an accelerator. So we really worked a lot on the digitization of companies, focused on growing the market, focused on building Qwarta, ”Jankovsky added.
Home Credit’s non-performing loan (NPL) ratio more than doubled in 2020, from around seven percent in 2019 due to the impact of the pandemic.
“So seven percent was the number before the pandemic. During the pandemic, the number more than doubled and there were many reasons for this, ”Jankovsky said.
These include the economic situation, lower loan volumes and lack of income for clients.
“We plan to return to our pre-pandemic NPL level by 2022,” Jankovsky said.
Home Credit Philippines director of marketing and communications Sheila Paul said the company’s biggest achievement so far this year has been the recovery of the business from the pandemic.
“We are definitely seeing signs of life. It’s not a return to our previous levels, but it’s definitely a sign that things are slowly returning to normal, ”said Paul.
Launched nationwide in 2013, Home Credit has served an estimated eight million unbanked Filipinos with little to no credit history and providing affordable payments for their gadgets and electronic needs.
“It’s what we now call ‘buy now, pay later’ and despite the term that gained fame during the pandemic, it’s actually a relatively old concept,” said Paul.
Not only has it consolidated its footprint as the nation’s leader in consumer credit with a presence in over 9,000 stores nationwide, but the company has also rapidly grown its mobile presence in recent years through the My Home Credit app on Google Play Store, which now has over nine million app users.
In addition to offering easy payments, Home Credit now offers easy payments with the introduction of its latest payment option Qwarta, in which customers will be given up to P 10,000 as an additional spending limit in the app. to increase their purchasing power.
In 2019, Home Credit Philippines was also approved to operate as a credit card issuer by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), making it the first non-bank institution in the country to issue credit cards. .