Some big banks will shut e-banking on Holy Week
Banks will be closed during the four-day Lent season, except for a few who have announced limited operations on Black Saturday and Easter Sunday, while others will have inaccessible electronic banking at certain periods.
Major banks have scheduled maintenance works and checkups which means even electronic banking channels will be temporarily unavailable on specific days and time, and these banks are advising clients to check schedules on their websites.
The SM Group’s BDO Unibank, Inc. will close all its branches, including those located inside malls, for the duration of the long Holy Week weekend which begins on March 29, Maundy/Holy Thursday, until April 1, Sunday.
The bank will schedule maintenance activity on Good Friday and its electronic banking will be inaccessible between 2am and 7am on March 30. Its debit and cash cards transactions at other banks’ ATMs and POS here and abroad will likewise be temporarily unavailable from 2am to 7am the same day, it added.
“Electronic banking channels and services, such as ATMs, Debit POS, phone banking, mobile banking, personal and business online banking are ready to accept and process transactions except from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Good Friday due to a regular network maintenance activity,” a BDO advisory said.
Philippine National Bank will also take advantage of the long holiday to do system maintenance starting on Thursday until Friday. No other notice is given by the Lucio Tan-owned bank.
Security Bank Corp. (SBC) has announced that it will be performing maintenance works on their system on March 29 to 30, from 10 p.m. Thursday until 4 a.m., Friday. Its ATMs will have limited cash withdrawals during this period. SBC clients will also have limited use of debit and ATM cards for online transactions, and interbank fund transfer will be disabled.
In addition, SBC said that from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Friday, customers will not have access to ATMs nationwide, debit cards’ usage and fund transfers due to maintenance operations. The bank will likewise disable online/phone and mobile banking for these five hours.
SBC airport branches, in the meantime, in NAIA and NAIA Terminal 3 are open on Saturday and Sunday.
Some banks that will have uninterrupted electronic banking operations during Lent are Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank) and East West Banking Corp. (EastWest).
Metrobank, the country’s second biggest bank after BDO, will have some branches open from March 29 to April 1 and the complete list of these branches are on its website. All its electronic banking channels are also assured 24/7 operations during Holy Week.
Select EastWest stores in malls are also open on Saturday and Sunday, from 10am until 5pm. These are stores located in 168 Mall, Baclaran, Bicutan-East Service Road, Cebu Park Mall, Festival Mall – Level 2, and Greenhills Shopping Center. The 168 Mall, Baclaran and Festival Mall – Level 1 will also be available for clients on April 1, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and its other units, BPI Family Savings Bank and BPI Direct BanKo, will not have operations on March 29 until April 1, its online advisory said. There was no other advisory on maintenance schedules for BPI.