BSP trims further reportorial requirements for local banks

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has decided to further trim down the reportorial requirements for Philippine banks to comply with international standards.

The BSP said the new rules would remove as many as 74 different reports that banks were required to submit to bank regulators on a regular basis.

The revision of the BSP rules, officials said, would ultimately reduce the administrative costs of banks and eventually reduce the cost of bank lending and operations.

The BSP approved new measures that officials said aligned the country’s reporting system with international and Philippine Accounting Standards (PAS), Philippine Financial Reporting Standards (PFRS) and the ongoing liberalization of banking regulations.

The BSP said the new reporting rules also factored in innovations in the area of risk management supervision and in effect, did away with a number of reports required from banks.  

The BSP said the Monetary Board approved the amendment after a review of existing bank reportorial requirements completed by a task force specifically created by the BSP to identify prudential reports that were no longer necessary or which were rendered obsolete. 

According to the central bank, there were as many as 74 regular reports identified that could be removed because the BSP had previously adapted a risk-based supervision regime.

The BSP said these regular reports accounted for 31 percent of existing bank reports.

The BSP said these reports are no longer necessary since it has begun implementing new regulations governing disclosure requirements, including the Financial Reporting Package (FRP) which the BSP first adapted in 2006.  But the BSP said it was keeping nine of these reports that should still be submitted by banks, although not on a regular basis, but as supporting documents to applications or requests they file with the BSP.

The BSP said the most recent amendments were not the first to be undertaken by the central bank.

The BSP said it is planning to release further amendments to its reportorial requirements once the task force has completed its review. The new rules would cover reports required from other institutions under BSP supervision such as quasi-banks, non-stock savings and loan associations and pawnshops.