By Butch Fernandez, Bianca Cuaresma & Kathryn Jose
The venerable Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) was forced on Wednesday to turn off its computing systems and do manual transactions to help contain a program anomaly that wrought havoc on the accounts of some eight million clients.
At a news conference, BPI executives told financial reporters the anomaly was discovered at four in the morning and by then, some accountholders have began complaining on social media that account balances were inaccurate and that deposit or withdrawal transactions had been made without their knowledge or participation.
Executives then moved quickly to dispel the apprehension of accountholders, saying the anomalous transaction details of some was the result of a computer glitch.
The lender acknowledged its computing system had internal data-processing error that turned client account balances to zero, negative or even doubled or reduced.
“Somewhere, someone must have touched something. This is a software problem that picked up the wrong data. But our technical folks are extremely confident this will be fixed within the day because they know the problem,” BPI Senior Vice President Catherine P. Santamaria said in the news conference at the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City.
Santamaria assured its eight million clients their money remains stored in the bank, as the Ayala-led bank shut down all its electronic channels yesterday. Thus, she advised them to directly go to the branches to withdraw, if necessary.
“No money physically went in or out. The money is still in the bank. Those who withdrew more than what they have will be investigated. Clients know how much money they have,” Santamaria said of the immediate and practical impact of the anomaly.
Santamaria said the problem had been contained and an investigation rolled early on even before Facebook users posted messages hours later, claiming their balances on savings accounts online and on ATM doubled, emptied or reduced.
“When I say contained, we know the root cause of the problem, how to fix it and who were affected by the problem,” she said.
The lender issued an advisory on social media saying clients who transacted with the bank between April 27 and May 2 were the only ones affected.
“We’re putting the data together. Some information [on how much money was lost or doubled] will be confidential because we are a bank,” Santamaria said.
“Definitely there was human error that we are already investigating internally. We are making sure that people responsible are held accountable,” she added.
Santamaria asked clients to refrain from posting alarming messages online.
“Because of social media and how information is being brought out, it appeared to be a big problem. No one in social media said my account is okay, but some of the accounts have already been corrected,” Santamaria added.
She revealed some clients withdrew large amounts on Wednesday morning in panic but that later in the day this subsided.
“Some had extraordinary withdrawals” that later in the day subsided when people realized the bank will have the anomaly fixed within the day, she said.
“We are correcting the error and making sure whatever balance you had the other day will remain the same,” she explained further.
She claimed the glitch would not be repeated because BPI technicians are correcting the anomaly. However, she asked clients to also employ safety measures to protect their account data.
At the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Deputy Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. reacted by saying: “BPI already issued a statement explaining the situation and promising to fix it today. We’ll investigate as soon as the dust settles and the customers are made whole.”
Thus, BPI remains confident that the problem will not recur soon because of its strict and
efficient system operations.
“When we give our assurance that we have detected the problem, the regulators will know our processes. We anticipate full resolution of this error within today and reassure our clients that none of them will lose money from this incident,” Santamaria reiterated.
This developed as the Senate Committee on Banks and Financial Institutions did not rule out a separate legislative inquiry into the system malfunction in order to allay depositors concerns this could happen to other banks.
But Sen. Francis G. Escudero, Committee chairman, said the panel would give way to the separate probes by the Bangko Sentral, the Anti Money Laundering Council (AMLC) and the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI).
“After the BSP, the AMLC and the NBI Cybercrime looks into it [we may open a Senate inquiry] if it is still necessary,” the Senator said.
In a text message to the BusinessMirror, Escudero said the Committee will await the findings of the three agencies before moving to open its own inquiry “and only if inconclusive, or wanting, will we do so”.
Senators on Wednesday sought to calm distressed depositors of the BPI amid reports of unauthorized transactions and withdrawals in their accounts.
This, even as Sen. Grace Poe prodded BPI to promptly render a report on what actually triggered the glitch.
“They should come out with a report on what caused this, so that people will not be left in the dark and have unnecessary worries about their accounts,” she said.
Poe expects bank officials would promptly uphold the trust given to the institutions.
Interviewed at the weekly “Kapihan sa Manila Bay” forum, Poe allayed depositor concerns after BPI officials traced the glitch to “an internal data-processing error” and admitted some of their clients saw their accounts “debited twice or credited twice for a past transaction” and assured they were moving quickly to correct the so-called mispostings.
“First of all, I trust the institution. I know that BPI has been there and has proven their track record. It’s good that they came up with this advisory immediately but we would like to know what caused this. Is it an internal IT [information technology] problem or error? Or is it an attack?” said Poe, adding: “I think that they will fix it immediately.”