Lucio Tan-backed Philippine National Bank (PNB) posted a 20 percent increase in net income for 2025, reaching P25.3 billion as lending activity strengthened and operating efficiency improved. The performance lifted the bank’s return on equity to 11.1 percent, up 70 basis points from the previous year.

In a Monday press release to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the bank said growth was driven largely by expansion in the bank’s core businesses. PNB reported its loan portfolio climbed 15 percent year-on-year, with the consumer loans segment leading the increase at 27 percent, while corporate and commercial lending grew 13 percent. Net interest margin stood at 4.51 percent, supported by healthy asset yields and relatively low funding costs.

Deposits also strengthened, rising nine percent to P1.06 trillion and surpassing the trillion-peso mark for the first time. At the same time, asset quality improved, with the non-performing loan ratio easing to 4.7 percent from 5.7 percent in 2024 as the bank tightened portfolio monitoring and strengthened risk-scoring systems.

Chief Financial Officer Francis Albalate said non-interest income continued to provide a buffer to the bank’s overall earnings.

“Fee-generating businesses including deposits, loans, credit cards, trust operations, and bancassurance, and other non-interest earnings provided solid support to the Bank’s performance for 2025,” he said, noting the bank’s expanding revenue base and growing customer confidence.

Operating expenses increased at a slower pace than total operating income, allowing PNB to further improve its cost-efficiency ratio to 48.2 percent from 49.6 percent in 2024.

Meanwhile, PNB President and CEO Edwin Bautista said the results reflect gains from the bank’s modernization initiatives. “The Bank’s 2025 overall performance marked another milestone for PNB,” Bautista said, adding that upgrades to the core banking system and ATM switch strengthened customer acquisition and improved operational capacity.

Bautista added that digital adoption also accelerated, with the bank reporting that users of the PNB mobile app rose by 26 percent during the year. The bank also deepened its digital payments infrastructure through a partnership with Mastercard on payment tokenization and raised P15.7 billion through an oversubscribed ASEAN Sustainability Bond issuance, marking its return to the domestic debt market since 2019.