Central bank orders Ayala-led BPI to explain banking snafu
THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has instructed the Ayalaled Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) to submit a timeline and updates regarding reversals on the double debit transaction incidents last Wednesday.
As of press time, BPI remained mum on how many of the erroneous transactions have been reversed.
The publicly-listed lender’s social media contained a post saying BPI expects “correction of the duplicate transactions within the day,” or January 4.
The central bank said it is “closely coordinating with BPI in relation to the double debit transaction incident affecting BPI account holders.”
The BSP said in a statement that it has instructed BPI “to submit a timeline and updates on the reversal of its erroneous transactions.”
The BSP said it received information that the country’s third-largest bank by assets has identified the root cause of the operational error and committed to reverse the erroneous transactions.
The BSP also said the bank assured it will restore mobile and Internet banking services at the soonest time possible.
“Given the high volume of inquiries on our online banking channels, you may experience intermittent access to our web and mobile app platforms,” BPI said in a post on its social media channel. “Rest assured that your account is safe and secure.”
‘Hoy BPI’
LAST Wednesday, “hoy BPI” and “0431 Debit Memo” trended on Twitter with many holders of BPI accounts taking to social media to air their grievances over the double debit transactions.
Based on Twitter data, as of press time, the “0431 Debit Memo” had over a thousand Tweets while “hoy BPI” is still trending and is the top 4 Philippine trending post as of press time.
Many of those who posted their grievances provided screenshots of their debited accounts containing amounts that were transacted between December 30 and 31 last year.
The posts also contained screenshots of the BPI mobile app stating “We are unable to provide access at this time. Please try again,” effectively blocking users from their accounts.
Many of those who posted their rants on social media also implored that BPI should return the debited accounts saying the funds were already reserved for various expenses.
In the afternoon of Wednesday, Tweets from BPI account holders already contained updates that their accounts have been restored. These were posted alongside posts from other account holders who have yet to see reversals in their transaction records.
BPI said in August last year that 4.9 million of their 8.46-million client base has been enrolled in digital channels as of 2021. The bank said it also has a growing list of over 80 Application Programming Interface (API) partners covering nearly 800 products and services, with over 100 million transactions in 2021.
Digital banking
The lender’s snafu came a day after the central bank announced it partnered with bankers to fortify digital banking. (See https://businessmirror.com.ph/2023/01/03/ bsp-taps-bankers-to-promotecybersecurity/)
Based on the Philippine Development Plan (PDP), the BSP will continue to use regulatory technology (Regtech) to fight cybercrimes and benefit financial sector firms and supervising agencies.
This strategy is expected to improve regulatory compliance as well as help the private sector pursue greater digitalization and improve the design and delivery of innovative financial products and services.
Regtech aims to provide efficient and effective public and private sector solutions to prevent fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing; and streamline prudential reporting.
It can also be used to conduct effective creditworthiness assessments and provide a more efficient, timely, and accurate manner of meeting reportorial and compliance requirements, among others.
In August last year, BPI marked its 171st year by saying it would focus on “digitalization, customer obsession and sustainability efforts.”
In a statement celebrating its 171st year in the business, BPI said it “continues to reinforce its core values of nurturing, acting with integrity, being customer obsessed and acting with excellence to remain relevant to its customers.”
“Customer obsession is a movement where we will be proactive in putting the customer at the center of all that we do. We will change behavior; we will question policies; we will improve products and processes. We are taking concrete steps to lead a customer-obsessed organization,” BPI President and CEO Jose Teodoro K. Limcaoco was quoted in the statement as saying.
Limcaoco has yet to issue a statement on Wednesday’s snafu.