East West Banking Corporation, formally known as EastWest Bank (PSE: EW), is the 11th largest bank in the Philippines in terms of assets. Founded in 1994 in Manila by the late tycoon Andrew Gotianun and his wife, the bank is a member of the Filinvest Group, led by the Gotianun family. Its headquarters is located at The Beaufort, a condominium building by Filinvest in Bonifacio Global City.
The bank operates through a network of 490 stores, with 392 being EastWest parent bank stores and 98 stores of EastWest Rural Bank, complemented by 584 ATMs nationwide, internet banking, mobile banking, phone banking, and 24-hour customer service. The vast store network is complemented by three corporate banking offices in Metro Manila and 12 regional offices.
In May 2012, EastWest became a publicly-listed bank through an initial public offering, the first by a Philippine bank in eight years, raising around PHP4.8 billion. The bank acquired Finman Rural Bank in June 2012, which became EastWest Rural Bank in 2013, and received approval from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to operate as a universal bank in July, allowing EastWest to offer a wider range of financial products and services.
As a Philippines-based universal bank, the company’s business segments include retail banking, corporate banking, consumer banking, and treasury and trust. The retail banking segment covers traditional branch banking products and services such as deposits, back-to-back/emerging market loans, and other transactions, catering to high net-worth clients for alternative investment channels, including transaction processing and service delivery infrastructure. The corporate banking segment handles lending and trade financing for both large corporations and middle market clients.
EastWest ventured into allied financial businesses through its wholly-owned subsidiary EastWest Insurance Brokerage, which started operations in 2015, a 50-50 joint venture with Ageas Insurance International to form EastWest Ageas Life Insurance Corporation that began operations in 2016, and established EastWest Leasing and Finance Corp., while acquiring the retail banking business of Standard Chartered Bank Philippines. Over 26 years, EastWest emerged as one of the fastest-growing and most consumer-focused universal banks in the Philippines, with its nationwide network of 490 stores making it the 5th largest store network, excluding subsidiaries.
EastWest Banking Corporation announced that it will give back Php 1.8 billion to its shareholders as dividends, according to a disclosure filed with the Securities
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