BDO’s online bank services now restored

Updated on August 19, 2024 at 10:45 p.m.

MANILA, Philippines — The online services of BDO Unibank have been restored as of 8:00 p.m. on Monday, August 19, the bank said in a social media post.

In a statement posted on their Facebook page, BDO Unibank said that the following services have been restored:

• BDO Pay
• BDO Online App
• BDO Personal Online Banking
• BDO ATM (automated teller machine) services

“We are happy to inform you that we have successfully restored the BDO Pay, BDO Online App, BDO Personal Online Banking, and BDO ATM services. Thank you for your understanding and patience,” BDO Unibank said.

In another statement, BDO explained that the prolonged system downtime encountered was due to a vendor system issue during one of its planned maintenance to upgrade its online banking services.

The Sy-led banking giant apologized for the disruption.

“We understand the inconveniece and frustration this has caused, and we sincerely apologize for the disruption,” BDO said.

Earlier, at 8:57 a.m. of August 19, the company informed customers that they are working on issues that affected the above-mentioned online services.

In-bank transactions however were still available.

“We’re working on restoring BDO Pay, BDO Online App, BDO Personal Online Banking, and BDO ATM services as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience. You may go to your preferred BDO branch for your banking needs,” BDO Unibank noted.

READ: BDO: Withdrawals made from account of viral man who ‘lost’ P345,000 valid

Several netizens and individuals have called out the bank earlier for the problems that hounded its online services. Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda, chairperson of the House of Representatives’ committee on ways and means, warned that BDO’s inability to fix issues quickly causes a dent in the confidence towards the country’s cyber infrastructure.

Salceda said he expects the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to “see this as a red flag.”

“BDO promised to be online by 7 a.m. today. It has been almost half a day since that promise. BDO being the country’s largest bank, this shakes confidence in the cyber infrastructure of the country’s financial system. Credit cards, ATM services, and other non-branch banking services are unavailable. Practically the whole non-branch system is shut down. I expect the BSP to see this as a red flag it has to work on with BDO by now,” Salceda said.

According to the lawmaker, the long waiting hours are already affecting people’s lives.

“There are life-affecting consequences, already: From families who cannot settle hospital bills by credit card, to ordinary citizens unable to pay bills due today. I am also in receipt of complaints from Filipinos currently traveling […] that the failure of BDO’s online and mobile banking services to work has affected them significantly,” he said.

“Will BDO make up for these consequences? To the BSP: will BDO be held to account for this utter failure of service and commitment? To the BDO: what guarantees do the people have of the security, effectiveness, and reliability of your online services?” he asked.