PDIC begins to settle claims of Banco Filipino’s big clients

Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) will begin servicing deposit insurance claims of medium to big clients of recently closed Banco Filipino Savings & Mortgage Bank starting June 15.

In a statement, PDIC expects to completely settle all claims in about two months, from June 15 to August 19, one month ahead of the original schedule.

“Depositors should proceed to the branches or designated CSO [claims settlement operations] sites on their appointment dates based on the priority or reference numbers given to the depositors during the claims receiving operations (held earlier),” PDIC Officer in Charge and Executive Vice President Imelda Singzon said in a statement.

Also, PDIC has already begun paying deposit insurance claims of small depositors. It said some 75,000 depositors with accounts of P5,000 or less had already been paid. Total payment amounted to P86.2 million.

Meantime, payment of depositors with accounts of more than P5,000 to P10,000 began last week.

According to data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Banco Filipino has 177,652 depositors with total deposits of P15 billion.

PDIC said it had sufficient funds to cover the deposit insurance claims of Banco Filipino’s clients.

Under the PDIC charter, deposits worth P500,000 or less are covered by insurance.

Amount in excess of P500,000 may or may not be paid depending on proceeds following the liquidation of a closed bank’s assets.

Once a bank is placed under receivership and proven to be incapable of being rehabilitated, PDIC will sell its assets, the proceeds of which will be distributed among creditors and other entities that have claims against the bank.

Deposits in excess of P500,000 may be paid if there is still money left after all the bank’s liabilities have been settled.

According to the BSP, the failure of Banco Filipino does not reflect the financial health of the country’s banking sector.

It said the case of Banco Filipino was the exception to the rule.

The BSP said the country’s banking sector remains generally healthy, as proven by profitability, higher-than-required capitalization and comfortable levels of exposure to loan defaults.