The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported a net income of P83.82 billion in 2022, up by 141.4 percent compared to the previous year.
This increase was largely driven by the BSP’s net gain of P83.36 billion from its foreign exchange transactions, which resulted from selling US dollars to support the depreciated peso. In contrast, the BSP’s foreign exchange gains in 2021 only amounted to P3.26 billion.
However, BSP’s revenues decreased by 14.8 percent to P141.30 billion in 2022 from P165.89 billion in the previous year. Meanwhile, expenses rose by 28.8 percent to P140.79 billion, largely due to high costs for banknote production and coin minting, as well as taxes and licenses fees.
Despite the increase in net income, the BSP’s total assets declined by 4.3 percent to P7.247 trillion, mainly due to a decrease in international reserves resulting from the defense of the peso against the strong US dollar.
BSP’s net worth also decreased to P110.87 billion compared to P136.70 billion in 2021.
In order to meet the requirements of the amended BSP Charter, the central bank’s capitalization should be P200 billion. Although the BSP recently received an additional P10 billion in capitalization, it has no immediate need for fresh capital according to BSP Governor Felipe M. Medalla
If the BSP contributes 100 percent of its dividends to the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), it will not receive its full capital for another 14 to 17 years.
