PH financial system to stay up and running amid virus pandemic, says BSP

The central bank has put in place measures to ensure that the Philippine economy remains humming by activating an alternate site from which local financial markets are supervised and checks from banks are cleared.

The announcement was made on Thursday by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin Diokno, as he announced that he would go into self-quarantine—along with other economic managers of the Duterte administration—after potentially coming into contact with a COVID-19-positive person recently.

“Both check clearing and financial markets operations will go on, but they will be run from the BSP’s Quezon City office,” he said in a mobile phone message to the media. “In the meantime, the BSP headquarters [in Manila] will be disinfected.”

The regular Thursday meeting of the policy-making Monetary Board was moved to today, and will also be held at the central bank’s high-security Quezon City compound, which houses its mint and currency printing facilities.

Monetary Board officials who will be unable to phy­sically attend the meeting— like Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, who is also in self-quarantine—will join the proceedings via video confe­rencing facilities.

According to Diokno, the BSP has also decided to suspend work at its head office and Security Plant Complex for Thursday and Friday to facilitate thorough preventive sanitation of our premises.

“We have ensured, however, that vital BSP services needed by the financial system continue,” he said. “Hence, open market operations, PhilPass settlement, as well as the servicing of bank withdrawals are being performed business as usual.”

The central bank chief said that, even in the absence of confirmed cases within the BSP and among its ranks, the institution has been taking steps to help prevent the spread of the virus, including the thermal scanning of employees and vi­sitors entering our gates, the establishment of health protocols for personnel going on official and personal travel, the postponement of gatherings, and a sustained information campaign to keep oneself healthy and resi­lient against the virus.

“The BSP will continue to look after the welfare of its personnel as we provide the requirements of the financial system and the broader economy,” he said, adding that going forward, the central bank “will maximize the use of technology to limit physical contact in performing our functions, while remaining proactive in carrying out the protocols advised by health authorities on COVID-19.”