Founded in 1852, Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) was incorporated on January 4, 1943 and went public on October 12, 1971. In the post World War II era, BPI evolved from a purely commercial bank to a fully diversified universal bank with activities encompassing traditional commercial banking as well as investment and consumer banking. This transformation into a universal bank was accomplished mainly through mergers and acquisitions when it absorbed an investment house, a stockbrokerage company, a leasing company, a savings bank, and a retail finance company. BPI has two major categories for products & services. The first category covers its deposit taking and lending / investment activities. The second category covers services other than and auxiliary to the core deposit taking, lending, and investing business, and from which is derived commissions, service charges & fees from turnover volume. The company's principal subsidiaries are composed of BPI Family Savings Bank, Inc., BPI Capital Corporation, BPI Leasing Corporation, BPI Direct Savings Bank, BPI International Finance Limited, Hong Kong, BPI Express Remittance Corporation, Bank of the Philippine Island (Europe) Plc, Ayala Life Insurance, Inc., and BPI/MS Insurance Corporation. Source: SEC Form 17-A (2008)