BPI reactivates electronic banking channels

Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) has reactivated all electronic banking channels but asked customers on Friday to bear with intermittent difficulties due to high traffic volumes.

While the technical glitch has caused an uproar in social media, the stock market does not expect any long-term adverse impact on the bank or the rest of the industry.

“Unless the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas)’s investigation reveals any major shortcoming, the impact to BPI should be very minor and temporary. This is specific to the bank and should not affect the rest of the industry,” said Raymond Neil Franco, head of research at stockbrokerage Abacus Securities.

Shares of BPI were unchanged on Friday at P105.90. The bank is currently valued by the stock market at around P416.09 billion.

With the electronic banking channels—referring to automated teller machines (ATMs), mobile and internet platforms—all offline in the past two days while the bank addressed what it called a technical glitch, pent-up demand drove volumes when mobile and internet banking services were restored.

“While access to our electronic channels has been restored since 9 p.m. yesterday (Thursday), this traffic may cause intermittent difficulties,” BPI said in an advisory on Friday morning.