MANILA, Philippines — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Friday said a probe was launched on non-existent accounts on the country's largest banks falsified to make it appear that lenders hold over $2 billion missing from a German payments firm at the center of a global accounting scandal.
“We are currently investigating the matter,” BSP Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier said in a text message when sought for comment.
Both BDO Unibank Inc. and Bank of the Philippine Islands denied business dealings with Wirecard, a German payments provider, whose months-long crisis hit a new low Thursday when auditors found 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in funds missing.
The German company’s bosses, in turn, hurled fraud allegations and the firm failed for the fourth time to present its 2019 earnings.
The red flag was raised over escrow accounts in two Asian banks supposedly holding 1.9 billion euros to manage risk for merchants using Wirecard’s payment services. The banks in question appeared to be BDO Unibank Inc. and Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), which both denied hosting accounts for the German firm.
“Wirecard is not a client of the bank. The document claiming the existence of a Wirecard account with BDO is a falsified document and carries forged signatures of bank officers,” BDO, the largest bank in the country in asset terms, said in an e-mailed statement.
BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno relayed a message from BDO, which identified "one of our marketing officers" to have fabricated the document, a bank certificate "in favor of EY Germany" auditing firm. It was unclear at the moment what was the intention for the crime. "That officer has been terminated," BDO said in a message relayed by Diokno.
Separately, BPI also denied the existence of a Wirecard account. “Their external auditor presented to us a document that claimed that they are a client,” the Ayala-led bank said.
“We have determined that the document is spurious. We continue to investigate this matter,” it added.
The listed Philippine banks' denials were first reported by Bloomberg on Friday afternoon. The news broke more than an hour after the Philippine Stock Exchange closed the trading week.
Shares in BDO closed the week flat while BPI fell 1.83%, tracking the main index's downturn.
For her part, Fonacier said the BSP received both BDO’s and BPI’s reports and said regulators are “currently engaging” the banks. She declined to provide further details about the ongoing investigation.
The clock is ticking for Wirecard, as 2 billion euros of credit could be withdrawn if it is unable to publish its results for last year by Friday.
Many investors have already pulled the plug, with the stock plunging around 70 percent in afternoon trading in Frankfurt, to around 32 euros.
Wirecard’s board headed by Markus Braun have filed a legal complaint against "unknown persons," saying they could have fallen victim to a vast fraud. All four members are under investigation by Munich prosecutors for “market manipulation.”
“It is currently unclear whether fraudulent transactions to the detriment of Wirecard AG have occurred,” chief executive Braun said. — with a report from AFP