BPI evades fine over data glitch

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has spared Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) of a monetary fine but two officers were penalized over the glitch that paralyzed its nationwide operations in June last year.

Sources told The STAR the BSP’s Monetary Board approved last week the enforcement action against two officers of BPI, but the 166year old bank escaped any monetary fine.

“There was a lapse in allowing programmer access to operational matters, hence, the enforcement action to the two officers having oversight to it,” one of the sources said.

The identities of the two officers of the listed bank were not revealed.

Another source said the BSP noted the internal data processing error that affected the operations of BPI last June 6 was accidental and not intentional.

“No monetary fine. (The) incident was not intentional, but more of accidental,” the source said.

Furthermore, the source explained the regulator was satisfied with the way BPI handled the concerns of their depositors.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives launched an inquiry into the incident wherein a programmer of the listed bank committed an error in judgment that resulted in the internal data processing error wherein incorrect balances were reflected in the accounts of depositors.

During the inquiry at the Senate last June 21, BPI officials led by president and CEO Cezar Consing said the glitch that affected the nationwide operations of the country’s third largest bank was 100 percent not a hack.

For his part, BPI executive vice president for enterprise Ramon Jocson said a system programmer who was in a rush to post transactions caused the internal programming error that affected 2.9 million transactions of 1.5 million out of its eight million depositors.

The glitch affected 540,000 transactions per day. BPI has 827 branches nationwide that handle 850,000 transactions per day.

In a separate hearing at the House of Representatives, Consing said as much as P46 million was accidentally withdrawn by clients during the height of the “mis-posting” of account balances on June 7 and 8.

Last August, the BSP’s Supervision and Examination Sector (SES) completed its inquiry into the incident.