Cebu banks remain safe following ‘Comeleaks’

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu Bankers Club has assured the public its member banks and the whole banking community remained safe and secure following the recent Commission on Elections voters’ data leak.

Banks do not use biometrics data to process transactions, said CBC president Maximo Eleccion in an advisory yesterday.

“We require actual signing of documents and we do verbal and SMS (Short Message Service) confirmations,” he said.

“We are strict in protecting the data of our clients and we do not use complete name and birthday only, we go beyond those,” the bank official said.

Eleccion said some member banks even send e-mails and SMS alerts to confirm their clients’ transactions.

However, the CBC still advised the banking public to always keep their account information confidential.

“Do not share your password. Your password should not be related to your personal information,” he said.

He further advised people to change password regularly and refrain from using public computers and unsecured Internet connections.

The Comelec’s website was hacked last March 27, leaking its database which contained personal details of voters. The poll body already apologized for the data leak

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas told banks to tighten guard in profiling their clients.

BSP’s Memorandum 2016-005 directed all banks and other supervised financial institutions to “exercise extra vigilance”.

Banks should require additional information from clients to verify their identity, the central bank said. 

“Customer identification procedures of BSFIs (BSP-Supervised Financial Institutions) that rely on static information which may be obtained from the disclosed Comelec records should be supplemented by requests for additional proof or secondary information to establish the true identity of new and existing clients,” read the memorandum signed by BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr.  

Banks are directed to strengthen their “know-your-customer” (KYC) rule, especially that it also became a hot topic following the bank heist that involved the $81 million stolen from the Bangladesh Bank’s account with the Federal Reserve and wired into the country’s financial system through Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.  — (FREEMAN)