BSP orders banks to strengthen ‘know-your-customer’ practices

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Friday ordered all financial institutions it supervises to step up their know-your-customer (KYC) practices following the leak of registered voters’ personal information.

“Relative to the reported unauthorized disclosure of voters’ registration records of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), all BSP-supervised financial institutions are enjoined to strengthen their KYC practices and exercise extra vigilance against possible misuse of said information for financial transactions,” BSP Deputy Gov. Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. said in a memorandum

“Customer identification procedures of 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,” Espenilla added.