BSP, DILG to monitor pawnshops to prevent fencing

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Department of Interior and Local Governments as well as local government units would monitor thousands of pawnshops nationwide to prevent fencing, money laundering and other criminal activities, officials said yesterday.

Monetary Board Member Ignacio Bunye said the BSP has identified 13,864 pawnshops operating in the country as of last year.

Bunye said complaints have increased against the illegal operations of some pawnshops, which are covered by BSP regulations.

He said the BSP decided two years ago to take action and conducted mapping operations to determine the number of registered and unregistered pawnshops all over the country.

After mapping 3,453 pawnshops through random selection, the BSP discovered that 900 or 26 percent of those inspected were unregistered, Bunye said.

“As a way to ensure stricter compliance, the BSP has plans to ink separate memoranda of agreement with the DILG as well as the League of Provinces of the Philippines, League of Cities of the Philippines, League of Municipalities of the Philippines and the umbrella Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines, for efficient information sharing between the BSP and local government units,” Bunye said.

“Under the proposed agreement, local government units would be requested to submit the registration applications of new pawnshops to the BSP prior to their operations,” he added.

The local government units would also be requested to submit a quarterly list of new pawnshops to allow the BSP to determine which of them failed to apply for registration, he said.

BSP examiners also found out that some of the mapped pawnshops were involved in unauthorized money changing and remittances.

“Some 976 pawnshops were found to have violated rules and regulations such as failure to require signature of customers in the pawnshops’ registers, which could abet fencing; failure to attend anti-money laundering seminars; and failure to register with the BSP,” Bunye said.

The BSP’s action alarmed many pawnshop proprietors, who immediately applied for the registration of their branches upon realizing the seriousness of the Bank’s mapping project.

The BSP Integrated Supervision Department with the assistance of the Anti-Money Laundering Council and the Regional Monetary Affairs Sub-Sector would change their focus from identifying unregistered pawnshops to ensuring their compliance with existing rules and regulations, he said.

“By ensuring that the pawnshops in your neighborhood are legal and operating in good faith, the BSP protects the ordinary Filipino from unscrupulous financial transactions,” Bunye said.

He said pawnshops in the Philippines play an important role in economic development by catering to the needs of those who do not have ready access to the credit facilities of banks and other lending institutions, he said.