MANILA, Philippines — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has ordered banks to further strengthen their redress mechanisms and hasten the turn-around time for resolution of consumer concerns involving electronic fund transfers.
BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto Tangonan said the regulator has reminded all BSP-supervised financial institutions (BSFI) on the guidelines on the handling of consumer concerns on PESONet and InstaPay.
Tangonan said that Circular 980 issued in 2017 has required all banks and financial institutions to adhere to the National Retail Payment System (NRPS) framework requiring continued compliance with BSP rules and regulations including, among others, in the aspect of financial consumer protection.
On top of the required personnel education on and publication of PESONet and InstaPay information required under Memorandum 2019-00I, BSFIs participating in these automated clearing houses (ACHs) are required to strictly adhere to the principles under BSP Circular l048 on the BSP’s Financial Consumer Protection Framework.
Under the framework, banks and financial institutions are required to establish effective mechanisms to ensure that all frontline personnel at the head offices, branches, branch-lite units, including those that handle customer issues lodged thru various available channels, possess adequate, accurate and relevant information about PESONet and lnstaPay to address consumer concerns and fund transfer issues, and to properly advise on redress mechanism and turn-around time for resolution of issues.
Tangonan issued Memorandum 2022 – 029 stating that BSFIs are required to post materials containing pertinent information on redress mechanism of PESONet and lnstaPay, including up-to-date contact information for consumer concerns particularly related to electronic fund transfers on appropriate channels such as the BSFI’s website and official social media pages.
According to Tangonan, banks are mandated to provide customer accessibility to a wide range of accessible contact channels for communication of consumer concerns, including but not limited to customer service hotlines, email, chatbot, and make available timely and adequate response to concerns sent via said channels.
The BSP official said the Philippine Payments Management Inc. (PPMI) should monitor and lead its members toward continued compliance with the NRPS framework, as well as ensure members’ adherence to the applicable guidelines under the BSP’s Financial Consumer Protection Framework.
“Thus, the BSFIs are required to submit status of their compliance with this memorandum to the PPMI. Said consolidated regular updates on the status of compliance of BSFIs with this memorandum shall be reported by the PPMI to the BSP Payment System Oversight Department on a semestral basis,” Tangonan said.
The NRPS was launched towards the end of 2015 as part of the BSP’s efforts to increase the share of digital payments in terms of volume to total retail transactions to 20 percent by 2020 from only one percent in 2013. The target was achieved as the share hit 20.1 percent in 2020.
Under its Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap, the central bank aims to further raise the share to 50 percent of total retail transactions and increase the number of Filipino adults with bank accounts to 70 percent by 2023.