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Banks borrow P3M from rediscount window in Aug.

LENDERS LOGGED minimal availments from the rediscount window of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in August, showing banks are still armed with enough cash to service their clients’ needs.

“For the period Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, 2020, total availments by banks under the peso rediscount facility amounted to P20.7 billion, with minimal availments in August 2020,” the central bank said in a statement on Thursday.

The BSP said loans in August alone totaled just P3.1 million.

Banks last tapped the peso rediscount facility in March and April.

Loan availments in August were borrowings for transactions related to commercial and other credit.

The bulk (76.75%) were other credit made up of bank loans for capital asset expenditures (62.67%), permanent working capital (13.86%) and housing (0.01%).

Meanwhile, commercial credits comprised 23.46% of total rediscounting loans, which include credit for importation (14.20%) and trading (9.26%) of goods.

On the other hand, there were no availments under the Exporters’ Dollar and Yen Rediscount Facility. In January to August 2019, total loan availments from the facility hit P116.574 billion.

The BSP’s rediscount window lets lenders get hold of additional money supply by posting their collectibles from clients as collateral.

The cash — which is in peso, dollar or yen — may be used by banks to disburse more loans for corporate or retail clients and service unexpected withdrawals.

The minimal availments of peso rediscount loans in August suggest the financial system remains flush with liquidity, said Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. Chief Economist Michael L. Ricafort.

“There is still so much excess peso liquidity in the financial system even after the RTB (retail Treasury bond) issuance in August, so there is still less need for banks to tap peso funding through the BSP rediscounting facility,” Mr. Ricafort said in a text message.

The central bank slashed the reserve requirement ratio of big banks by 200 basis points (bps) to 12% in April, releasing some P200 billion into the financial system.

In July, the reserve requirements of smaller lenders were likewise trimmed by 100 bps to three percent for thrift banks and two percent for rural banks, respectively, freeing up about P10 billion in liquidity.

Aside from this, the central bank has also allowed banks to count their loans disbursed to small businesses as well as to non-conglomerate large enterprises as part of their reserve requirement compliance.

For this month, peso loans regardless of maturity will be priced at 2.75%, which is the current lending rate set by the BSP.

Meanwhile, applicable rates for dollar- and yen-denominated loans regardless of maturity will be at 2.25588% and 1.94767%, respectively. — Luz Wendy T. Noble

Taguig, more gov’t agencies partner with PayMaya for e-payment

PAYMAYA Philippines, Inc. announced Thursday its partnership with a local government and four more government agencies to offer cashless payment options to the public.

These are in addition to PayMaya’s over 50 partners in the government, PayMaya Enterprise Head for the Public Sector Marvin C. Santos said at a briefing on Thursday.

PayMaya’s new partners are the Land Transportation Office, Securities and Exchange Commission, City of Taguig, Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, and Optical Media Board. They can now accept card and e-wallet payments for various transactions.

The existing partners of PayMaya include the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Social Security System, PAG-IBIG Fund, Bureau of Customs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Trade and Industry, Professional Regulation Commission, National Home Mortgage Finance Corp., the cities of Valenzuela, Ormoc, and Parañaque, among others.

“Through PayMaya’s end-to-end digital payment platform, various government agencies and local governments can now offer more convenient payment options to Filipinos, allowing for continuous delivery of critical services to the public and heightened efficiency and transparency of its operations,” PayMaya said in a statement.

PayMaya Chief Executive Officer and Founder Orlando B. Vea said: “By going digital and offering cashless payment options, the government is helping address our two most pressing issues today: ensuring the safety of all citizens and helping in the recovery of the economy.”

“We at PayMaya are always excited to partner with agencies and local government units to offer our solutions to enable them to offer better and more transparent services to the public,” he added.

In June, PayMaya reported that the volume of e-payment transactions from the government had surged by 900%.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte had called for easier and more efficient transactions in government agencies in his fourth State of the Nation Address last year.

PayMaya is a subsidiary of Voyager Innovations, Inc., the digital innovations company of PLDT Inc. Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin

Actor Anthony Rapp sues Kevin Spacey for sexual misconduct in 1980s

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NEW YORK — Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey was accused in a civil lawsuit on Wednesday of sexual assault and battery in the 1980s by actor Anthony Rapp and a second, unnamed person when both plaintiffs were about 14.

The suit, filed in New York state court in Manhattan, refers to the same alleged incident that Rapp first recounted in an October 2017 BuzzFeed interview that triggered Spacey’s fall from grace in Hollywood.

Spacey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The actor, who won Oscars for the films American Beauty and The Usual Suspects and a Golden Globe for the TV political drama House of Cards, has largely retreated from public life in the past three years.

Spacey in 2017 said he did not remember the encounter Rapp described but added, “If I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”

Spacey, now 61, came out as gay in 2017.

Rapp, best known for starring in the Broadway musical Rent and the TV show Star Trek: Discovery, alleged in the lawsuit that Spacey “engaged in an unwanted sexual advance” with him when he was 14, during a party at Spacey’s home in 1986. The second person, identified only as C.D., alleged that he and Spacey had oral and anal sex and engaged in other sexual acts on several occasions in the early 1980s when the plaintiff was approximately 14 years old.

Both men are seeking unspecified damages for emotional distress. — Reuters

Revamped currency bills in circulation hit P24.5 billion

THE central bank has circulated 29 million pieces of the enhanced New Generation Currency (NGC) worth P24.5 billion, with the new bills expected to replace all banknotes in the financial system by 2023, its chief said.

“This means that more of our countrymen are able to use these more inclusive and more secure Philippine banknotes in making their daily transactions,” said Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said in an online briefing on Thursday.

The enhanced NGC banknote series started circulation in late July. The latest version of the bills include enhanced security features that make them harder to be counterfeited. Among these are the roller bar effect on their value panels, dynamic movement of design patterns and color-shifting ink.

The new banknotes are also embedded with tactile marks for easier distinction for the elderly and persons with disabilities.

The bills are engraved with pairs of short horizontal bands engraved at the extreme right and left side. The P50 bill has one pair of marks; two pairs for the P100 bill and so on, with five pairs for the P1,000 banknote.

The enhanced NGC series did not include the P20 bill as the central bank decided to make the denomination only in coin for efficiency as coins have longer lifespans.

The revamped bills are expected to be the only edition in circulation by 2023, Mr. Diokno said.

However, for now, the BSP said the enhanced NGC as well as the prior version are coexisting until earlier banknotes are withdrawn from circulation due to wear and tear.

Mr. Diokno earlier said central banks tweak their banknotes every decade on average to protect the integrity of their currencies. — L.W.T. Noble

First Gen halts run of natural gas plant

FIRST GEN Corp. has paused the operation of one of its natural gas-fired plants after an incidence of power tripping.

The Lopez-led energy firm said it would not be dispatching power from its 414-megawatt (MW) San Gabriel power plant while it was investigating the electrical fault.

An initial probe by Siemens Power Operations, Inc. noted an electrical fault in the generator, “and pending completion of the inspection, the plant has been declared as unavailable for dispatch,” First Gen told the stock exchange on Thursday.

“Once the investigation is completed, we will provide the estimate of the expected return to service of the San Gabriel plant,” it added.

The San Gabriel mid-merit generator is one of the company’s four natural gas facilities located in its energy complex in Batangas. It started delivering power to the Luzon grid in November 2016.

It also has a full-year power supply contract with Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest distribution utility.

In the first semester of 2020, First Gen’s natural gas plants delivered P4.5 billion in recurring income, down by 16% as it continues to suffer from low electricity sales in the second quarter. They posted a 17% drop in revenues – making up 61% of its parent’s top line – due to lower average natural gas prices and a decline in their dispatch.

First Gen has earmarked $18 million next year for its gas plants, including budgets for the life extension of its 1,000-MW Santa Rita, 500-MW San Lorenzo, and 97-MW Avion power generators, its officials said in a recent stockholders’ meeting.

Besides natural gas generators, First Gen also has a portfolio of hydropower plants, as well as geothermal, solar, and wind power facilities through its subsidiary Energy Development Corp.

Shares in First Gen dropped by 1.96% to close at P25 apiece on Thursday. — Adam J. Ang

Oscars academy sets out new diversity standards for best picture contenders

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

LOS ANGELES — The body that hands out the Academy Awards on Tuesday published detailed inclusion and diversity guidelines that filmmakers will have to meet in order for their work to be eligible for a best picture Oscar, starting in 2024.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has been criticized for honoring few movies and creators of color, said the standards represent a new phase of a five-year effort to promote diversity on and off screen.

The rules lay out percentages or numbers of actors, production staff, marketing staff and internships on a movie that must be filled by people of color, women, people with disabilities or people from the LGBTQ community.

The rules will not apply to films vying for Oscars at the next ceremony in 2021, but movies that want to be considered eligible for a best picture nomination at the 2024 Oscars will have to meet two of the four new standards, the Academy said.

The four standards cover diversity representation among actors and subject matter; behind-the-camera staff, such as cinematographers and costume designers; paid apprenticeships and training opportunities; and marketing and publicity.

Criticism of the film academy intensified in 2016 with the social media hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, a backlash against two consecutive years of an all-white field of acting contenders. — Reuters

Microsoft, ePLDT to make PWDs more hireable

MICROSOFT CORP. said Tuesday it has partnered with 14 technology firms in the Asia Pacific, including ePLDT, Inc., for a program aimed at increasing the employability of people with disabilities.

The technology organizations will be trained to become “inclusive employers,” Microsoft said in a statement.

They will provide job shadowing, internships, mentoring and job opportunities for persons with disabilities (PWDs), it added.

Microsoft said it will train PWDs in data engineering and programming, cloud computing, and application development.

The employer partners will be trained in “inclusive design and assistive technologies enabled through artificial intelligence.” They will also receive training from six non-profit organizations: Be. Lab (New Zealand), JA Korea, KODAF (Korea Differently Abled Federation), SG Enable (Singapore), The Redemptorist Foundation for People with Disabilities (Thailand), and Virtualahan (Philippines).

The employer partners of Microsoft are: Cloocus (South Korea), Cognizant Technology, Solutions (Singapore, Philippines), Crayon (Singapore, Philippines, Thailand), Datacom (New Zealand), DXC Technology (New Zealand), ePLDT (Philippines), HCL Technologies (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, New Zealand), Ingram Micro Asia (Singapore), Metanet Tplatform (South Korea), Nexus Tech (Philippines), NTT Asia Pacific (Singapore, Philippines, Thailand), NTT Data (Singapore, Philippines), Tech Data (Singapore), and Wipro (Singapore, Philippines, Thailand).

Microsoft said the technology firms are expected to complete the accessibility fundamentals course, which “provides guidance on inclusive design principles and leveraging assistive technology.”

Vivek Puthucode, chief partner officer at Microsoft Asia Pacific, said: “In today’s workplace, it is imperative that we include everyone, and accessibility is the vehicle to inclusion. It is a responsibility and an opportunity. There are no limits to what people can achieve when technology reflects the diversity of everyone who uses it.”

“Inclusive organizations outperform their peers and attract and keep top talent, and we have seen how inclusion drives innovation,” he noted.

Microsoft said the program also includes a job fair for PWDs, which will be held in the second quarter of 2021.

“With more than 1 billion people with disabilities in the world, disability-inclusive employment can lead to 1-7% rise in gross domestic product in Asia Pacific through increased economic productivity,” it added.

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin

Phoenix sets ties with Indonesia’s oil firm

DENNIS A. UY-led Phoenix Petroleum Philippines, Inc. continues to expand its business within Southeast Asia as it plans to enter into a partnership with a unit of Indonesia’s state-owned oil company for fuel supply marketing.

The independent oil company on Thursday told the stock exchange that its board signed off its plan to team up with the Singaporean unit of PT Pertamina Indonesia.

“The strategic partnership covers supply and potential cooperation in the downstream [oil] business in both Philippine and Indonesia[n] markets,” said Raymond T. Zorrilla, Phoenix’s senior vice president for external affairs.

The Indonesian state firm opened Pertamina International Marketing and Distribution Pte. Ltd. in Singapore just last year in part of its regional expansion. Phoenix also trades and sells refined oil products in the country through Phoenix Petroleum Singapore Pte Ltd. since 2017.

Phoenix said the upcoming tie-up is “part of the company’s growth plans” in the region. It has yet to disclose further details about the deal.

Recently, it listed P3.1 billion worth of commercial papers in the Philippine Dealing and Exchange (PDEx). Proceeds from the 332-day debt papers will be used for its procurement of imported fuels and lubricants.

To recall, the company found it difficult to recover in the second quarter due to credit tightening, which restricted it from replenishing its inventory. In the period, it incurred a net loss of P5 million, reversing its income of P489.27 million a year earlier.

Aside from fuel products retailing, the company is also engaged in logistics services, transport, and convenience store operations.

Shares in Phoenix were unchanged at P11.00 each on Thursday. — Adam J. Ang

TV’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians to end after 14 years

LOS ANGELES — The American television reality show that shot Kim Kardashian and her family to fame is ending in 2021 after 14 years, the E! network said on Tuesday.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which helped make Kim Kardashian and her siblings Kylie, Kendall, Khloe, and Kourtney household names and launched their careers in the fashion and beauty business, will air its last season early next year, the network and the extended family said.

“It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to Keeping Up with the Kardashians. After what will be 14 years, 20 seasons, hundreds of episodes and several spin-off shows, we’ve decided as a family to end this very special journey,” the family said on social media.

They gave no reasons for the decision, but E! said in a statement that it respected “the family’s decision to live their lives without our cameras.”

Keeping Up with the Kardashians made its debut in 2012 and spawned 12 spinoff series. Audiences have declined in recent years to under 1 million from about 4 million at the height of the show’s fame. E! is part of NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.

The show chronicled the personal and professional lives of the California family, including Kim Kardashian’s marriage to rapper Kanye West, an armed robbery in Paris, Khloe Kardashian’s split with basketball player Lamar Odom, and the transition of family patriarch Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner.

It helped Kim Kardashian launch a beauty and shapewear line, launched the modeling career of her half-sister Kendall Jenner, and helped promote a lip gloss business that turned half-sister Kylie Jenner into a billionaire at the age of 21.

Kim Kardashian’s life has recently taken a more serious turn with her decision to train as a lawyer and to lobby for criminal justice reform. — Reuters

Dual transformation: Now is the right time

The coronavirus pandemic has forced companies to adopt digital transformation and change how they create, deliver, and capture value to their customers.

Take, for example, Philippine fastfood giant Jollibee Foods Corp. The Nikkei Asian Review reported that the company recently announced “it will spend P7 billion ($138 million) to build discreet ‘cloud kitchens’ and a stronger delivery service as part of a global restructuring plan” to offset the impact of the pandemic. These kitchens would be in discreet, low-rent sites and not include dine-in facilities.

Global experts believe that companies and organizations will accelerate their migration to digital applications and platforms. “What organizations resisted for a decade is now core to survival and innovation,” Michael Hendrix, partner at Ideo, told Fast Company.

But the economic crunch businesses are facing today is driving CEOs and the board to transform their organization for the long haul while reaping the benefits of digital transformation today.

This is where dual transformation, a concept propounded by Clark Gilbert, Mark W. Johnson, and Scott D. Anthony in their book Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Today’s Business While Creating the Future.

Dual transformation is a strategic approach to reposition today’s business to maximize its resilience, especially during this time of pandemic, while at the same time creating tomorrow’s new growth engine when economies bounce back.

From the term itself, dual transformation has two streams — Transformation A, which is finding new possibilities for addressing existing markets, and Transformation B, which is about creating a powerful new growth engine for the future.

Many successful businesses face a growth challenge during this pandemic in the core markets they currently dominate. Consumers and business buyers have quickly shifted to digital platforms. Hence, many companies have adopted Transformation A, by identifying the shift in behaviors of your current customers, innovating your business model against this shift, determining and monitoring new metrics, and aggressively implementing the transformation. This is exactly what Jollibee did and other organizations by quickly pivoting their business models to serve current customers that shifted to digital.

But this is not enough. When the global economy bounces back, organizations need to expand their businesses to other untapped and constrained markets to create the growth engine of the future. For successful companies, future growth often has to be found outside their core markets. But looking to new markets, new customers, and new business models is a big strategy. Hence, pursuing Transformation B is a sound strategic approach.

It involves identify constrained markets, a new problem that a significant group of customers wants to solve but can’t, because of a lack of specialized skills, iteratively developing the new business models to serve the new market and power the future, and using partnerships, acquisitions, and new hires to succeed against a new competitive set.

But the most challenging part of dual transformation is what resources and assets will an organization use to make the two-transformation seamless and efficient. This is where the “capabilities link” serve as a bridge from the organization of today to the growth leader of tomorrow. it involves identifying and using unique capabilities of the organization and developing systems and creating formal exchange teams to manage dual transformation. The company’s top leadership needs to actively arbitrate the interface between A and B, with a bias to protecting transformation B.

One successful execution of dual transformation cited by the authors is Adobe. Transformation A for Adobe involved introducing Creative Cloud, a new subscription-based business model that offered greater revenue predictability, with lower production cost. The company stopped shipping physical media in 2013; cloud-based products comprised roughly one-third of revenue by 2014.

Transformation B for Adobe involved launching a targeted suite of digital marketing solutions — breaking an under-served market wide open. The company acquired several leading web analytics businesses — e.g., Omniture, Day Software and Efficient Frontier to build new business in markets it was not serving.

Adobe leveraged on its brand strength, talent pool, and established distribution network as its capabilities link.

Dual transformation is a journey that CEOs and the board need to understand and prepare for. It also entails transformation the organization’s mindset and culture. Adobe and other companies too it. It took seven year for digital marketing at Adobe to become one-third as big as its traditional business.

 

Reynaldo C. Lugtu, Jr. is CEO of Hungry Workhorse Consulting, a digital and culture transformation consulting firm. He is the Chairman of the Information and Communications Technology Committee of the Financial executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX). He is Fellow at the US-based Institute for Digital Transformation and the Country Representative of the Institute of Change and Transformation Professionals Asia (ICTPA). He teaches strategic management in the MBA Program of De La Salle University.

rey.lugtu@hungryworkhorse.com

Exit interviews for workers retrenched during the pandemic

Our top management has decided to retrench 30% of our workforce due to the adverse effects of COVID-19 on our business. Our plan is almost complete, except for a question from one department vice-president asking our human resource department about the propriety of conducting exit interviews. What do you think? Is it appropriate for us to conduct exit interviews or not? — Blue Mango.

At a summer religious camp for grade school children, one of the counsellors was leading a discussion on the purpose God has set for all of His creation. They began to find good reason for clouds, trees, rocks, rivers and animals and just about everything in nature. Finally, one of the children said: “If everything has a purpose, then why did God create poison ivy?”

One of the children came to the discussion leader’s rescue by saying: “The reason God made poison ivy is that He wanted us to keep our hands off certain things.”

True enough. There are things we should not touch depending on the circumstances. In your case, you are dismissing a lot of people from the workforce. That means you’re doing something against the employees’ interests, which is contrary to the rationale behind exit interviews — to determine the gaps between what the employer can provide as compared to the workers’ expectations.

Of course, you are allowed to retrench people as long as you comply with certain legal requirements which I’d like to believe have been complied with. And that’s not easy for people who have worked with you for a long time. But these are difficult times. You need to bite the bullet if only to ensure survival and save the jobs of other people.

Therefore, I would recommend that you not proceed with exit interviews if only to avoid emotionally-fraught face-to-face encounters with the retrenched staff. Instead, the HR department should make them fill out a one-page questionnaire which will be a requirement for receiving terminal pay and signing the quit claim.

You will notice that some of the following important questions may resemble those questions you find in a typical exit interview, except with a different slant:

One, are you be willing to be rehired under a different employment contract? This is a modified close-ended question answerable by “yes” or “no.” Whatever the answer, require the retrenched worker to justify it. If the answer is “yes,” somehow, that suggests the employee is happy with your organization. Whatever the answer, try not to raise anyone’s expectations about a return to work.

Two, will you allow us to release your personal information to your new employer? If your answer is “yes,” make them sign an updated, formal waiver in favor of a prospective employee or business partner when the time comes. This question is in anticipation of a background check by the employee’s prospective employer or partner, and is a requirement of the Data Privacy Law.

Even if an employee was undesirable while in your employ, never make any damaging statements that could trigger a lawsuit. Instead, focus on giving only the hiring date and last day of employment as required by law.

Three, would you be willing to be contacted for certain unfinished projects and freelance consulting work? If the answer is “yes,” require the former employee to indicate a contact number, e-mail address, and residence. Note also that you’re lumping “unfinished projects” with “freelance consulting work.” This means you’re willing to pay the person for unfinished projects.

If the answer is “no,” you should take that to mean that the former employee has some issues against the company or its management team. If that happens, don’t force the matter. Remember, you’re not doing an exit interview.

Last, would you recommend anyone from the company as your possible replacement? If the answer is “yes,” the follow-up question should be to ask for the names of the top two choices and the reason for the endorsement. Once again, do not give the retrenched employee any indication that his recommendation will be followed. On the other hand, if the answer is “no,” that might mean the employee was not happy with your company.

ROLE OF HR
Retrenchment is a difficult and painful process, not only for management but for all non-management employees, including the survivors. It’s not the time to blame the workers and open old wounds. However, ignoring the possibility of an unpleasant confrontation does not solve the fact that you are losing talented employees who may be the key to the company’s profitability and survival.

Therefore, do whatever it takes to soften the impact on the line managers who may have to deal with workers face-to-face. Instead, let the matter be handled by the HR department so the policy is consistently applied to all concerned.

 

Send anonymous questions to elbonomics@gmail.com or via https://reyelbo.consulting

Century Properties adds more to housing portfolio

CENTURY Properties Group, Inc. (CPG) continues to expand its affordable housing portfolio as it completed 1,140 new projects in the first half of the year.

PHirst Park Homes, Inc., the affordable housing subsidiary of CPG, said in a statement on Thursday it is trying to catch up on suspended projects since construction work was allowed to resume.

A total of 1,140 house and lot units have been completed by PHirst Park with Mitsubishi Corp. located in Tanza, Cavite and Lipa, Batangas.

“The company is ramping up construction works to catch up on three months of coronavirus-triggered lockdowns. A total of 2,279 units are under construction across all projects,” PHirst Park President Ricky M. Celis said in the statement.

CPG has a P13.2-billion development footprint comprising 97 hectares and a total of 9,188 units. It booked P3.12 billion in reservation sales during the first half from selling 1,548 units.

The company’s strategy is to expand revenue contributions from its affordable housing and commercial leasing segments, with a goal of balancing its asset portfolio with in-city vertical developments.

In the first semester, the affordable housing and commercial leasing segments generated a combined income contribution of P225 million, accounting for 42% of CPG’s P541.21 million net income.

Its attributable net income fell 36% to P458.13 million, as consolidated revenues dropped 25% to P4.52 billion.

Shares in CPG at the stock exchange shed 0.5 centavo or 1.35% to 36.5 centavos on Thursday. — Denise A. Valdez

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