Banks told: Change policies to avert fraud

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang is encouraging banks and other financial institutions to change their internal policies to avert fraudulent activities, following a report by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) that bared losses arising from scams rose last year.

During Thursday’s briefing at the Palace, Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro addressed the BSP’s latest report, which stated that gross cyber losses increased from P5.67 billion in 2023 to P5.82 billion in 2024 – almost 2.6 percent.

“Actually, we spoke to the leadership of the BSP, and they will issue an official statement on this. But in line with that, we are encouraging the banks to implement changes in their internal policies on this, and we will also have infomercials and information dissemination on how the people can avoid becoming victims of scams,” said Castro.

Castro also stressed the importance of adapting to new technologies to tackle ever-evolving cyber crimes.

BSP Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier said at the UK-Southeast Asia Tech Week on Tuesday that the top cybersecurity risks faced by BSP-supervised institutions in 2024 included phishing, “card-not-present” fraud, account takeover or identity fraud, and hacking.