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METROPOLITAN Bank and Trust Co. announced on Tuesday that the use of
its automated teller machines (ATM) grew last year, pushing
transactions to exceed the P100-million mark.
The bank said ATM transactions include Metrobank
clients who use any of the switches of Bancnet, Megalink or
Expressnet. The country’s largest lender by assets also reported
an increase in the use of its ATM facility by non-Metrobank card
holders. Such transactions pushed the number by another 1.4 million
to over 20 million last year. Metrobank has a network of 736 ATMs
all over the country and accounts for 29.4 percent of Bancnet ATMs
deployed.
In addition, Metrobank said its service
availability last year averaged 99 percent—the highest among the
Bancnet members—for its Metrobankdirect, Internet banking facility
for retail and corporate clients and its ATM facilities—allowing
clients to have complete access to their accounts. This also meant
that scheduled downtimes for upgrading of the system were minimal.
“Reliability is a very critical aspect of our
electronic banking business. We are encouraged by the positive
response of clients in terms of the growing number of enrollees and
transactions for these services. This high level of availability
even for a bank our size has made Metrobank ATMs sought after by
card users, as we experienced during the recent Christmas season,”
Dennis Suico, Metrobank operations group chief, said in a statement.
The lender’s Metrophone facility or phone
banking also registered over 150,000 in enrolled accounts while
transactions reached over 4 million last year.
-- Likha C. Cuevas-Miel
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