Banking Institutions and Corporate Governance
Banking Institutions and Corporate Governance
165 This chapter presents the various literature and studies conducted in
166 relation with the present undertaking. Also includes in this chapter are the
167 synthesis of the state-of-the-art, the gap to be bridged by the study, the theoretical
171 deposits and loaning out of funds. Banking as a business is termed as one that
172 makes money with other people’s money. Banking business itself involves credit
173 and credit transactions involves three basic elements; Trust and confidence, risk
174 and futurity. With this, depositors trust banks for and these deposits in turn is given
175 out as loans. By giving out loans the bank receives the safekeeping of their
176 deposits interest in which it becomes income.1 This holds true as the General
177 Banking Law of 2000 defines the role of banks as entities that lend funds obtained
178 in the form of deposits.2 Banking institutions play a key role to helping economies
181 corruptions and misuse of their client’s deposits. Such policies have been strictly
182 implemented through the years since the 2007 and early 2009 Global Financial
183 Crisis. Since then, the banking industry has grown and will grow rapidly for the next
184 ten years, especially now with the integration of e-banking and other technological
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185 advances making banking an international experience with both Visa and
187 Filipino Workers, money transfers through interbank transactions has also grown
188 for the past 5 years. Such money transfers are also monitored closely by the
191 The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is not the first bank, the Philippines had. It was
192 only during the Commonwealth Period that plans to establish a Central Bank was
193 formed. In 1948, with the proclamation of the Central Bank Act, the Central Bank
194 was formed.3 Banking in the Philippines started with Banco Filipino and from then
195 on, the industry grew rapidly servicing many Filipinos. Due to the increase in the
196 number of depositors per bank and with higher amounts deposited, the risk in loss
197 of money invested grew, hence the government formed the Philippine Deposit
199 March 18, 2018, there are over 47 universal and commercial member bank PDIC.
200 These banks offer a wide range of bank products that would suit the different needs
202 Legazpi City, the capital of Albay Province is also home to these banks both
203 universal and rural. Legazpi is home to 2 large rural banks namely, Camalig Bank
204 and Legazpi Savings Banks. Universal banks on the other hand have many
205 branches in Legazpi alone to more than 30 branches from different banking
207
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209 China Bank was established on August 16, 1920 as the first privately owned
210 local commercial bank in the Philippines. It initially catered to the Filipino-Chinese
212 understanding of the Chinese way of doing business called the xìnyòng. Xìnyòng
214 In 1942, during the invasion of the Japanese, China Bank had to be
215 liquidated by the Japanese military authorities. On July 23, 1945, China Bank
216 reopened and play the key role in direct construction and economic recovery by
217 lending heavily to business and entrepreneurs in critical industries. This pioneered
219 Since then, China Bank has steered itself in the center stage of modern
220 banking. It was the first local bank listed on the Manila Stock Exchange in 1927,
221 the first in Southeast Asia to process deposit account online in 1969, and the first
224 in the number of branches from 148 in 2006 to 596 in 2017, including 160 branches
225 from its subsidiary, China Bank Savings. This was complemented by electronic
226 banking generals that provided secure and reliable 24/7 banking services such as,
227 ATMs, China bank tellerPhone, China bank online, and China bank mobile banking
228 app.
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229 Through 2009 to 2012, China Bank has received a number of awards and
230 was recognized both nationally and internationally. They became top 100 ASEAN
232 Firm Stern Stewart Company in 2009. In 2011, they were awarded the best wealth
233 management house in the Philippines by the asset magazine. Since 2011 until
234 present, corporate governance has been the flagship of China bank, receiving the
235 Bell Awards of the Philippine Stock Exchange twice from 2012 to 2013 as one of
236 the best governed companies in the Philippines and is the only bank in the top 5
237 publicly listed companies’ category. Also, receiving the Institute of Corporate
238 Director’s Gold Award for Corporate Governance through 2011 and 2012. At
239 present, China Bank is part of the top 50 ASEAN publicly listed companies as to
243 corporation is controlled and directed and involves balancing the many interest of
245 creditors, government and community. Corporate governance also involves ethical
248 by sound judgment leading to sound decisions that will produce sound outcomes.6
249 Governance in a corporation is carried out in the most satisfactory rate that clients
250 and employees could avail and these business entities should uphold the law with
252 Such practices may include honesty, integrity, loyalty and fairness that can
253 be trained in programs such as teambuilding and leadership workshops that are
255 is also part of corporate governance as it adheres with the ethical practices of a
256 business. Corporate governance does not only involve seminars and workshops
257 but it also involves policy making, rules and policies, set to dictate corporate
258 behavior and such can either lead to good or bad corporate governance.
260 integrity or obligation to stakeholders, that can have major implications on the
261 firm’s financial health. On the other hand, good corporate governance creates a
262 transparent set of rules and controls which shareholders, directors and officers
264 Moreover, the article by Gonzalez, defines good governance as the science
265 of decision-making and the exercise of power and authority so that society is able
266 to manage its development processes and resolve social conflict.9 Social conflict
267 and interest in the local setting affects the use of control by mangement primarily
268 because of the goal to balance such conflicting interest and cause to a more
270 Most companies strive to have a high level of corporate governance. For
271 many shareholders, it is not enough for company to be merely profitable but to
273 corporate governance should take into account sustainability which is the ability of
274 the company to meet needs of the present thus resulting to the company’s ability
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275 to survive in the long run. According to Kaplan and Norton the concept of
277 customer satisfaction, internal business process and learning and growth. These
282 organizations use. It was developed by Dr. Robert Kaplan and David Norton and
283 was published in a 1992 Harvard Business Review article. Kaplan and Norton took
284 previous metric performance measures and adapted them to include nonfinancial
285 information.10
287 governance paves the way to long term sustainability to meet the goals of the
289 satisfaction, Internal business process and Learning and growth. This type of
292 The ultimate goal of any business is to earn profit. Business operates with
293 more concern on the financial aspect because they want to minimize cost and
294 maximize income. However, this brings more risks as it may lead to more losses.
295 This is why organizations especially businesses should not only be focusing on the
298 most powerful institution in a capitalist society and its role will continue to become
299 increasingly important in global development. In order for business and society to
300 gain long term sustainability it needs to focus also on the non – monetary variables
301 such as customer satisfaction and learning and growth. This will lead to enhanced
303 comfortable place to work with and enough earnings to finance future growth and
304 development.11
306 Bottom Line Approach of SEDCEN,” they stated that every business is different
307 and one approach won’t suit all organizations. Every organization must develop
308 tools and strategies matched for their business, which is independent from
309 competitors.12 Entities engaged in banking would most likely use tools and
310 strategies to stay ahead from the competition. In every strategy or tool they create,
311 it is necessary for the company not to disregard other aspects so that it can achieve
312 its long term goal on sustainability. Thus, it is regarded as a necessity that a
313 company should measure their level of performance that includes both financial
316 ultimate success or well-being should be measured not just by the financial
317 perspective but also on the learning and growth of the business and its customers
318 and internal business process. It also contains to recognize the strengths and
319 weaknesses of the competitors and focus on improving the quality of these.
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322 Barrios and Claveron’s study emphasized that Balanced Scorecard is most
323 effective when it is able to tell the story of the organization’s strategy through cause
325 operational strategies, and help focus on key measures useful in identifying the
328 used by many organizations to evaluate the performance of the different aspects.
329 The model considers not only the organization’s performance internally, but
330 externally many of the investors and shareholders, are able to monitor the results
331 of this organization, assess and ensure. This model really helped the organization
332 to improve its operation in its financial, learning and growth, business processes,
335 Financial measures convey the economic consequences for the actions
336 already taken by the organization, and focus on the market value and profitability
337 among others, as indicators of how well the firm satisfies its owners and
338 shareholders.14
339 Profit has been the primordial goal of a business. It is used by the business
340 to improve its products and services. It is generated by adding value to a product
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341 more than the cost to procure. Through profit companies may be able to grow and
343 According to Lawler, many organizations still have the “profit – above – all”
344 mentality. The Balanced Scorecard Approach tells that profit being the only basis
345 of performance won’t help sustain an organization in the long run. They must
346 understand that considering the learning and growth of the business and its
347 customers and environment will help them produce more income. Avoiding costs
349 provide them absolute return from operations, rather than spending on those
350 mentioned costs for not considering them in their evaluation.15 Profit is only a part
351 and does not constitute success individually for every organization. With learning
352 and growth of the business and its customers and environment perspective, it
354 Moreover, the study of Cleo Regilme et. Al “The Perceived Social,
355 Economic and Environmental Impacts of Balogo Farm Resort, Oas Albay,” shows
356 that employment opportunities were rate having the highest percentage in regards
357 to economic impact perceived by the respondents. This means that one of the
358 factors that one has to consider is the availability of job for people in the community
359 where it will be built. In terms of community economic growth, job opportunities will
360 not only benefit the development project builders, but also the people in the
361 community while at the same time promoting how to save, protect, conserve the
365 while attaining long term sustainability. Arguably, by concentrating on the financial
366 perspective alone creates higher risks especially for companies that rely not only
367 on profit, but also on the learning and growth of the business and employee and
370 This key area of Balanced Scorecard provides a view on how customers
371 perceive the organization. The customer perspective should be considered the
372 central element of any business strategy that provide the unique mix of products,
373 price, relationships, and image that the company offers to its customers.17
375 private or public. A company’s first task is to create and keep a customer. Thus,
376 corporate executives are always reminded that in any organizational setting, the
377 customer is the king or queen and therefore decides any future business.
378 In the Balanced Scorecard model, Kaplan and Norton states that an
379 organization must create differentiated and sustainable value to satisfy targeted
380 customer segments. Managers need to identify the targeted customer segments
381 in which the organization or a particular business unit competes and must
382 recognize suitable measures of the business unit’s performance for customers in
383 these targeted segments. Once the organization understands who its targeted
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384 customers are, it is able to identify the objectives and measures of the company’s
386 Raciles and Ramirez study stressed that SEDCen hires an external
387 consultant to gather relevant outputs and remarks regarding how the clients are
388 being reached by their programs. Profiling, statistical sampling questionnaires and
389 over-all assessment of how their clients perceive the programs are being
391 programs.19
393 corporate performance and are a possible standard of excellence for any
394 organization. The customer perspective includes also several common measures
399 Customer-based measures are important but they must be translated into
400 measures of what the company must do internally to meet its customers’
401 expectation. This is because excellent customer performance derives from internal
403 Raciles and Ramirez states that the organization focuses on outcome
404 evaluation to learn how their programs have made impacts on program participants
405 and to the society. SEDCen implements a tool that will focus on all the activities of
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406 the programs and key processes which are required in order for the organization
408 The internal business process perspective also measures the efficiency and
409 effectiveness with which the firm produces the product or services. This
410 perspective looks to address what companies must excel in order to meet
411 customer and shareholder expectations. Efficiency is important here. It’s all about
412 reducing waste and speeding things up, and doing more with less.21
413 These internal measures of the balanced scorecard should stem from the
414 business processes that have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction, factors
415 that would affect cycle time, quality, employee skills and productivity. Companies
416 should also concentrate and measure their core competencies, the critical
418 There are two kinds of business processes may be identified first is the
420 oriented processes are the special functions of government offices. The support
421 processes are more repetitive in nature hence easier to measure and benchmark
424 The learning and growth perspective addresses if companies can continue
425 to improve and create value. This performance indicator focuses to the employees
426 of the organization, and it measures the extent to which the organization exerts
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427 efforts to provide its employees with opportunities to grow and learn in their
428 domain.
429 Norton states that business that uses a Balanced Scorecard will provide fair
430 wages towards their employees, fair working hours and fair annual leave and
431 holidays. Also, some of the generated profit over the year will be invested back
432 towards their producers. Business practices should be fair to the labor community
434 A company creates a social structure in which a company’s good, work and
437 to the principles of fairness and honesty in mutual relations, creating the best
440 Berce et. Al study stressed that the range of resource utilization under social
442 employees towards his work and the degree of satisfaction of customers. It can
443 therefore conclude that employees are skillful and are dedicated in their line of
444 work.24
445 Furthermore, Segovia states that the learning and growth perspective
446 serves as foundation of the Balanced Scorecard which accordingly affects the
447 other three perspectives. Therefore, it can be concluded that the effects of the
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448 activities at the L & G produce a chain effect in which the ultimate goal is increasing
451 company to the people is important. The source of labor is primarily from the
452 community in which the company either directly or indirectly influence. If such
453 relation fails, the company will be short of manpower hence the effectivity of the
454 organization would decrease, resulting to more losses. A company does not
455 merely exist without the skills of professionals and the human factor of ethics in
458 This chapter focused on Banking institutions, specifically China Bank. That
459 China Bank a universal commercial bank follows ethical based set of rules and
460 decisions that will guide the company to its goal called corporate governance. That
461 corporate governance may be measured through many tools such as the balanced
462 scorecard.
463 The balanced scorecard was developed by Drs. Kaplan and Norton that
464 combines both the financial and non-financial perspectives of a business in order
465 to achieve long term sustainability. The balanced scorecard has four perspectives
466 which a company has to consider and these are; Financial Perspective, Customer
467 Satisfaction, Learning and Growth and Internal Business Process. All of these
468 components when aligned with the companies’ goals, will help the company to
471 The review of related literature established the foundation of the present
472 study. The present study proved to be similar to the other studies and yet there
474 The studies Cleo Regilme et.al and Berce et.al were about the application
475 of the Triple Bottom Line. They tackled on their activities that help improve the
476 corporate performance of the businesses in line with the environmental, social and
477 economic aspect. The previous and present study was found to be different since
478 the previous study used another kind of performance measurement tool which is
481 Maybank Legazpi found out that the utilization of the Balanced Scorecard as a tool
482 for measuring corporate performance may not be 100% effective at all times due
484 The previous and present study was found out to be related since both
485 studies focused on the same performance measurement tool which is the
486 Balanced Scorecard. However, the study of Barrios et, al. focused on the accuracy
487 of the Balanced Scorecard as performance measuring tool and not the actual
488 outcome of Maybank Legazpi’s programs, projects and activities that would affect
491 The study of Raciles and Ramirez on the Integration of the Balanced
492 Scorecard in Social Enterprise Development Center (SEDCEN), found out that the
493 entities strategies aligned with the application of the Balanced Scorecard as a
494 measurement tool that helped improve their overall corporate performance.
495 It was found out that both the previous and present study were related
497 tool, however, in the previous study, focused on a non-profit organization while the
501 Legazpi Inc. concluded that the learning and growth component of the Balanced
502 Scorecard serves as the foundation which accordingly affects the other
503 perspectives.
504 In the previous study, they focused on one of the perspectives of the
505 Balanced Scorecard, which is Learning and Growth and seeks its importance to
506 be the foundation and its relation to the other perspectives. However, in the present
507 study it will seek an equal utilization of the four components on its application to
509 With the studies reviewed, it was found out that no study concentrated on
510 assessing the corporate governance of a universal bank, more specifically China
511 Bank. The study focused on the current status and level of effectiveness of the
512 projects, programs and activities of China Bank using the Balanced Scorecard as
25
513 a performance measurement tool in order for them to attain, maintain or even
514 surpass there current ranking in the top ten (10) banks in the Philippines. This was
517 This study was anchored on the theory of the balanced scorecard
518 developed by Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton in 1992. The balanced
520 measure by adding measures from the perspectives of the customers, internal
521 processes, and learning and growth. In this way, it enables organizations to
524 into a comprehensive set of performance measures that provides the framework
525 for a strategic measurement and management system. The measures are
526 arranged in four measures and each measure should contain both outcome
527 measure that indicate excellent prior performance, along with the performance
528 drivers that will create a successful future performance and governance.28
530 important focus areas from which to measure performance and ensure that they
532
533
26
534
535
536
537 Figure 1
540
541
542
27
545 evaluate past events and support the management in the implementation of a
548 Banks are for-profit service oriented institutions and, like any other for-profit
549 establishments, banks exist to earn profit and to maximize the wealth of their
551 includes concerns for their customer satisfaction, learning and growth and internal
554 governance of China Bank was the focus of this study. The project, programs and
556 satisfaction, learning and growth and internal business processes was determined.
557 After identifying such, this study sought to know the current status of the
558 above cited variables using the balanced scorecard as the measurement tool
559 together with the assessment of the level of effectiveness of China Bank’s
560 corporate governance as perceived by the clients. Also, this study sought the
562 governance.
563
564
28
565
566
567
568
569
571
Current status of the projects, plans and
572 activities.
573
Level of Effectiveness
574
575
Strategies crafted to enhance existing
corporate governance
576
577 Figure 2
579
580
581
582
29
584 management, were the factors that helped China Bank grow into becoming one of
585 the Philippines leading banking institution. The company can generate from the
586 findings, the factors that can be used to maintain the company’s value and image
589 To have a clear overview of the things discussed and to facilitate clear
590 understanding, the following terms were conceptually and operationally defined:
592 controlled.29 In this study, corporate governance was the ethical decision and
593 actions taken into action by the corporation that would lead to its long term goals.
595 organization to identify strategies and make it executable.30 In this study, it was
596 the measurement tool that helps identify the current corporate governance of the
601 by an entity directed to the customer.32 In this study, it was the overall satisfaction
602 of the customer towards the programs, projects and activities of the company.
30
604 company’s operation.33 In this study, it was the smoothness of the company’s
606 Learning and Growth. Refers to the skills and knowledge acquired by the
607 internal management through skills training and seminars.34 In this study, it was
608 the ability of the employee adapt new practices that would further improve the
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
31
623 Notes
2E.L. Dizon, E.V.M. Dizon, (2013) Banking Laws and Jurisprudence. Rex
Book Store, INC.
8 Ibid.
Approach of SEDCEN”
18 Ibid
20 Ibid
28
Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton (1992) The Balanced Scorecard
– Measures that Drive Performance. Sourced from www.hbr.org, accessed on
November 19, 2018
30
Defining Balanced Scorecard Aspects in Banking Industry Using
FAHP Approach. Sourced from www.balancedscorecards.com, accessed on
November 19, 2018
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.