MANILA: The Philippine central bank on Wednesday released preliminary data for January domestic liquidity and bank lending.
Production loans, comprising 88.4 percent of the combined loan portfolio of universal and commercial banks, grew 18.1 percent in January from a year earlier, slower than the previous month’s 18.6 percent rise.
Consumer loan growth slowed to 20.3 percent in January from 20.8 percent in December.
The central bank is reducing banks’ reserve requirement ratio by 1 percentage point, effective March 2, a move that could pump more than $1.5 billion in additional liquidity into the economy. – The central bank said it has ample scope to mitigate the potential liquidity impact of a phased reduction in the reserve requirement via its weekly auctions of term deposit facilities.