DAVAO CITY — Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB) has started relaunching its branches in key Mindanao cities as it aims to expand its market base, beginning with soldiers, military retirees and local government employees.
Miguel Angelo C. Villa-Real, first vice president for corporate and consumer relations, said PVB’s rebranding is part of marketing efforts to attract more non-veteran and retail clients.
“Some of you think that Philippine Veterans Bank caters only to veterans, which is one of our biggest clients… We want it to be rebranded but not to give up its former clientele and also open the stores to other clients, that is the purpose,” Mr. Villa-Real said in media forum here Thursday.
On Friday, June 8, PVB relaunched its renovated branch in Kidapawan City, which now has a wall panel showing World War 2 events as well as display cases containing war artifacts and memorabilia.
The branches in the cities of Koronadal, Butuan and General Santos are also lined up for relaunching soon, Mr. Villa-Real said.
PVB’s Mindanao network also covers Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Valencia, and Zamboanga.
“Almost all the key cities, we have (a branch) in Mindanao,” he said.
The PVB official said choosing the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as their main niche market is the “easiest” because its members would be the next generation of veterans.
“So we are shifting to that market. The AFP retirees, they are modern day veterans,” he said.
“The (World War 2) veterans are almost gone,” he added, citing data that only around 5,000 of them are still alive out of the original 200,000 survivors.
“We don’t want to compete with the big boys (of the banking industry) as they already dominate the market and (have) very strong presence, so we want to look at markets that are not that heavy in terms of competition,” he added.
Local government employees are another target market as the bank already serves some municipal and city governments. — Maya M. Padillo

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