Big banks bad loans ease

THE country’s biggest banks managed to keep a lid on their bad loans in April through strict compliance with prudential banking measures, even as total lending increased nearly 20 percent from a year earlier, data from the central bank showed on Tuesday.

Gross nonperforming loans (NPLs) posted by universal and commercial banks (U/KBs) stood at 2.16 percent of their total loan portfolio (TLP) in April, down from 2.74 percent a year earlier, according to the latest figures released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).