The Ty family-controlled Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., the country?s second-largest bank, has signed an agreement with Bank of New York Mellon to boost the local bank?s remittance business.

Metrobank said in a statement released over the weekend that the remittance arrangement with BNY Mellon would allow the US correspondent banks within the United States to accept remittances from Filipinos there and forward the funds to Metrobank, which will then distribute the money to their beneficiaries in the Philippines.

BNY Mellon was established in 2007 from the merger of Mellon Financial Corp. and the Bank of New York Co. Inc. BNY Mellon is a leader in asset management and securities services with $20.2 trillion in assets under custody or administration and $928 billion in assets under management.

Metrobank executive vice president Carmelita Araneta said ?with over 8,000 partners, mostly credit union and banks that BNYM has for the program, the arrangement will complement our own offices in the United States.?

Under the arrangement, BNY Mellon and its correspondent banks may receive remittances for credit to Metrobank accounts, cash pick-up, home delivery, as well as other banks payments.

?The new arrangement expands the bank?s relationship with Bank of New York Mellon from a purely correspondent relationship to a remittance partnership,? Araneta said.

Remittances of Filipinos abroad to their families in the Philippines totaled $16.4 billion last year, fueling consumer spending.

Servicing remittances from the US accounted for 1.32 percent of Metrobank?s net income in 2007, down from 2.7 percent in 2006. with stiffer competition from other players and the entry of new ones such as state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines and Development Bank of the Philippines.

Metrobank has an extensive network of 552 domestic branches and an ATM network with over 800 teller machines as of the end of January 2009. Eileen A. Mencias