DID YOU KNOW…
...that in keeping with its quasi-public character, El Banco Español Filipino de Isabel 2, the first bank to be established in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, granted the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines with an interest-free loan amounting to 200,000 pesos fuertes in 1864?
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…that the amount was equivalent to half of the bank's authorized capital at that time?
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…that although the government specified that the loan be subject to a 6 percent interest, it was the bank's stockholders who decided to give the government the funds at no cost?
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…that this loan was the first of a number of accommodations extended by the bank to the colonial government in the Philippines?