TIMES 4TH BUSINESS FORUM PH banks need to focus on smaller, informal sectors -- WB official

THE Philippine banking industry has a lot of room to develop in the coming years, but it must also focus more on bringing financial access to smaller and informal sectors of the economy, a World Bank official said.

Nataliya Mylenko, WB’s senior financial-sector specialist, said the Philippine banking system is relatively small compared to those of Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia in terms of asset value and relative to the size of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).