The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has reminded banks that "disclaimer of legal liability" on their part in case money is stolen from their customers is not compliant with their "Fair Treatment" principle.
BSP Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier said in a memorandum that banks need to "uphold" the Fair Treatment principle under the Financial Consumer Protection Framework.
"Terms and conditions are not unfair in that there is a significant imbalance in the parties rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer," Fonacier quoted the principle in a statement.
"Thus, any broad and all-encompassing disclaimer of legal liability on the part of the bank for any losses incurred by their customers is not in conformance with the above-cited regulation," she added.
According to Fonacier, those found not complying with their current regulations "shall be subject to supervisory enforcement action/s."
The reminder comes after Banco De Oro (BDO) users noticed that the terms and conditions of the bank appeared like an attempt from the institution to absolve itself in cases of bank theft.
"Loss or damage you may suffer arising out of any improper, fraudulent access or utilization of the BDO Electronic Banking Services due to theft or unauthorized disclosure of User IDs, passwords, ATM PINs/TPINs/MPINs or violation of other security measures with or without your participation," BDO said in its Electronic Banking Terms and Conditions of Use.
BDO has since denied this and said it had always been the case in the banking industry.
"This has been part of the normal compliance for a long time. There was no added clause due to the recent incident," a statement from the bank said.
The statement referred to a recent banking theft case, where several BDO users reported losing money of up to P50,000 due to unauthorized transactions in their accounts.
BDO said it is already in the process of reimbursing the said losses.
