PDIC to service claims of medium-scale, big depositors of Banco Filipino

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) has announced it will begin servicing deposit insurance claims of medium to big clients of the recently closed Banco Filipino Savings & Mortgage Bank starting June 15.

In a statement, PDIC states that it expects to complete claims settlement for about two months, or from June 15 to August 19. This schedule would be one month ahead of the original schedule, the state-owned deposit insurer said in a statement.

“…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 the statement.

Meantime, the PDIC said it has already begun paying deposit insurance claims of small depositors. It said some 75,000 depositors with accounts of P5,000 or less have already been paid, and the total payment for them amounted to P86.2 million.

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

Data from the central bank showed that BF has 177,652 depositors with total deposits of P15 billion.

PDIC has said it has sufficient funds to cover for deposit insurance claims of clients of Banco Filipino.

Under the PDIC charter, deposits accounts worth P500,000 or less are covered by insurance. Amount in excess of P500,000 may or may not be paid depending on proceeds of liquidation of assets by a closed bank.

Once a bank is placed under receivership and proven to be incapable of being rehabilitated, PDIC sells its assets and proceeds are distributed among creditors and other people or entities that have claims against the bank. Deposits in excess of P500,000 may be paid if there is still money left after those liabilities are settled.

The BSP has said the failure of Banco Filipino does not reflect on 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 remained generally healthy, as proven by profitability, higher-than-required capitalization and comfortable levels of exposure to loan defaults.