Cebuana Lhuillier Bank (CLB), the banking arm of Cebuana Lhuillier, won the Rural/Cooperative Bank of the Year–Philippines at the 2022 Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards for its impressive initiatives and innovative financial products and services offered during the pandemic.
Asian Banking & Finance (ABF) is a leading publication known for catering to banking and finance executives in Asia. The 2022 ABF Wholesale and Retail Banking Awards honor the accomplishments of over 150 exceptional financial institutions across the Asia-Pacific region.
This year, the ABF Awards once again underscored CLB’s feat in their commitment to providing financial services to unbanked and underbanked Filipinos. CLB’s mission of financial inclusion continued to be a success since the launch of its flagship product, Cebuana Lhuillier Micro Savings, and integrating its services through a digital transformation. Its Micro Savings product encourages ordinary Filipinos to save by lessening the pain points of opening a bank account that hinder them from accessing their funds.
Together with Philippine micro-financial services giant Cebuana Lhuillier acting as the bank’s cash agent through the chain’s over 3,000 branches nationwide that are complemented by initiatives and technological innovations, CLB continues to redefine banking for ordinary Filipinos.
“For many years, our goal of financial inclusion for our kababayans remains unchanged. To be able to meet the ever-growing financial requirements of our clients, we wanted to bring our services closer to many Filipinos. The pandemic taught us the importance of saving money and having a savings account that we can rely on during difficult times. CLB pushes for innovative solutions that allow our kababayans to access their hard-earned funds, anytime and anywhere,” Cebuana Lhuillier president and CEO and Cebuana Lhuillier Bank vice chairman, Jean Henri Lhuillier said.
“The pandemic didn’t stop us from introducing groundbreaking financial solutions for our clients. Rather, it pushed us to develop more strategic partnerships with different institutions to cater to the needs of Filipinos. We collaborated with giant bank card service providers, UnionPay and Bancnet to intensify our Cebuana Lhuillier 24k Debit Card which is compliant with international standards (EMV) for more secured transactions. We also deployed new self-service point of sales machines in our branches and accredited cash agent branches nationwide which provide our clients convenience and accessibility to their funds without the assistance of bank personnel,” CLB President Dennis Valdes added.
Aside from these efforts, customers can easily access CLB’s services through its eCebuana app. This digital channel enables fast and easy processing of microfinance transactions within and outside Cebuana Lhuillier’s financial ecosystem, allowing its clients to access their accounts and perform various bank transactions like funds transfer, bills payment, e-Loading, and cash pick-up through any of Cebuana Lhuillier’s branches nationwide.
Since the pandemic in 2020, the bank saw an increase in its current portfolio of new basic deposit account holders, netting more than six million savings account holders by mid-2022.
CLB was also awarded the Rural/Cooperative Bank of the Year in the 2021 ABF Retail Banking Awards. In addition to its long list of accolades, the bank was also recognized by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) as one of Philippine banking’s notable players, naming it an Outstanding BSP Stakeholder in 2021 and further recognizing it as one of its notable resources in the agency’s Financial Inclusion Steering committee.