Dear Fellow Bankers,
Stand by your posts!
There is a reason that the banking industry was carved out of the Enhanced Community Quarantine Program. The banking industry must continue to operate even under the most difficult of circumstances if our economy is to continue to function. There are businesses and consumers to finance, payrolls to be met, bills to be paid.
Stand by your posts!
Even if this means hurdling checkpoints to join the skeletal forces in the head office units or to help staff the designated branches that must remain open. If our head office units are insufficiently staffed, our branches and ATMs will cease to function. Not everything can be done digitally, at least not right now.
Stand by your posts!
If this means working from home, as part of split team arrangements, rotation plans or BCP processes. Your work output from home is valuable and, in many cases, as time-sensitive as work done in the head office units and the branches. It is often harder to work from home. The support systems – – technology, processes, people – – will more often than not fall short of what you need to be as productive as possible.
Stand by your posts!
Even if your jobs require person-to-person contact, especially in the branches. As wired as we are as a people, we still depend on our branches. Bank managements have done a pretty good job of minimizing health risks to employees – – via frequent cleaning, social distancing, introduction of physical barriers, face mask requirements, disinfectants – – but there is no eradicating the health risks completely. CARE and COURAGE – – these must be our bywords.
Stand by your posts!
Remember that true character comes through in tough times. This means continuing to care for our customers’ deposits by ensuring that we make creditworthy loans, and paying a fair price for their deposits. This means charging our borrowers a fair interest rate, one that reflects funding conditions as well as credit risks. And in these extraordinary times, it may well mean a preparedness to reduce our net interest margins. Same for fees and commissions. Everyone is tightening their belts. We have to do the same.
Stand by your posts!
This crisis will test the quality of our loans, the marks of our securities, the sufficiency of our capital, and the resiliency of our operations and our people. The industry was strong going into this crisis. We want to emerge from this crisis with our strength and stability unquestioned.
Stand by your posts!
The more positive things we do now, the more pitfalls we can avoid at this time, the better prepared we will be to help in the economic recovery that is sure to come. We owe it to the place we call home to be constructive, impactful and meaningful in the post-COVID world.
Fellow bankers, ours is a mission critical industry. What we do and, equally important, what we choose not to do, will help shape our nation going forward.
On behalf of my fellow board directors in the BAP – – stay engaged, stay focused, and stay safe!
Cezar P. Consing
President
Bankers Association of the Philippines
