MANILA: The Philippine central bank has scope to offer more debt restructuring measures amid risks of higher defaults and non-performing loans (NPLs) at the time of the novel coronavirus pandemic, its governor said on Monday.
Since the start of the pandemic, the central bank has implemented a slew of monetary and regulatory measures to ensure liquidity and sustain credit flow, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor Benjamin Diokno told a virtual business forum.
The gross NPL ratio of big banks rose to 1.77% in March from 1.57% in end-2019, central bank data showed.
The central bank has yet to exhaust conventional monetary instruments in its toolkit to support the liquidity requirements of the economy when needed, Diokno said. – June 29, 2020, Reuters
