BPI And BDO Unibank Assure Senate Panel Compromises Are Under Control

BPI and BDO Unibank, two banks in the Philippines, said this week they have addressed issues that resulted in a 26-hour system shutdown at BPI and ATM comprises at BDO.

According to a news report in Finextra, representatives from the banks told the Senate Committee on Banks in the Philippines that they have taken care of the problems.

Earlier in June, a data processing error at BPI resulted in account balances increasing, decreasing or becoming negative. The bank was forced to issue a statement that read: “transactions occurring between April 27 and May 2” were “double-posted as of June 6.”

Finextra reported that the error resulted in 1.5 million of the bank’s eight million clients being impacted. Once the bank identified the error, it had to suspend access to its electronic channels for longer than a day in order to fix it.

Ramon Jocson, BPI executive president and head of the Enterprise Services Group, said at the hearing that the programmer took responsible for her mistake and has since been transferred to another area of the bank. He also said the internal investigation revealed the programmer wasn’t affiliated with external groups or syndicates. The mistake happened as the bank was upgrading its deposit system, which it is aiming to finish this year, noted the report. It also plans to look at the processes for recovery and implement more restore points.

As for BDO Unibank, representatives from the bank told the senate panel that the ATM skimming attacks in recent weeks weren’t significant, and clients were given back their money following the investigation. The bank said the issue will be fixed by a move to the Europay Mastercard Visa technology (EMV) and away from magstripes on all of the cards it issues, which will be finished this year.

The report noted the central bank in the Philippines (BSP) is stepping up the pressure on local banks to complete the EMV migration as to avoid future ATM skimming attacks.