MANILA, Philippines - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said on Friday it decided to reduce banks' required reserves by 3 percentage points to ensure the impact of changes it approved on the structure of reserve requirements will be neutral for banks.

The changes and the reserve cut were aimed at simplifying the reserve requirement regime and ensure adequate liquidity in support of economic growth, central bank Governor Amando Tetangco said in a statement.

"The Board noted that with the reduction in the reserve requirement ratio, the operational changes should not affect banks' lending and deposit rates or their service fees," Tetangco said in the statement.

The changes in structure and the new reserve ratio of 18 percent will take effect in April.

Earlier on Friday, the central bank said it had approved revisions to rules on banks' reserve requirement, including the unification of liquidity and statutory reserves into one category.

The central bank will also stop paying interest on these funds set aside by lenders under the new rules. It will also exclude banks' vault cash and demand deposits of non-bank financial institutions with quasi-banking functions from eligible reserves.

In its statement, the central bank said it anticipated the operational reforms to the reserve requirement may have some impact on banks' intermediation costs, prompting the cut.

The current reserve ratio of banks is broken down into 10% statutory and 11% liquidity. The central bank is paying 4% per annum on up to 40% of deposits maintained by banks as statutory reserves.

Interest paid by the central bank on liquidity reserves are based on the rate of comparable government securities less half a percentage point.

Officials said the Philippines was one of few central banks around the world still paying interest on banks' reserves.

At its last rates meeting on Jan. 19, the central bank cut its policy rate by 25 basis points to 4.25% to boost domestic growth amid a global economic slowdown.