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Banks told to disclose maintaining balance |
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By LEE C. CHIPONGIAN
The Manila Bulletin 05/05/2005 The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas will oblige banks to disclose to its depositors any changes in its minimum balance requirement and its corresponding fines if a client fails to maintain the necessary amount. BSP Deputy Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. said the central bank wants banks to inform its customers of the required maintaining balance on a regular basis to remind depositors to keep their deposits within or above the total. Inform the depositors so that if they want to avoid paying the penalties then they can withdraw their money and put it in another bank, he told reporters yesterday. According to Espenilla, we are proposing some standards to protect depositors. He added that the BSP however would not dictate how the banks will determine their minimum balance amount. We don’t want to dictate the minimum balance because that is a business decision. The BSP earlier told banks to inform their depositors of charges they impose on dormant accounts. Under the BSP rules, accounts are considered idle if no transactions are made in two years. Specifically, two years if it is a savings account and one year for current account. Banks charge P100 every month for dormant accounts. As part of their transparency efforts, the BSP is also requiring automated teller machine networks to disclose or post the fees they charge cardholders per transaction. The central bank has made it mandatory for banks to disclose fees and other charges on the first screen of an ATM. According to the BSP, banks fees have reached P24.3 billion in 2003. ATM fees range from P6 to P10 per transaction, such as balance inquiry and withdrawals. The BSP has been pushing for banks ATM mergers to reduce the operation costs and improve its efficiency. Banks operation expenses to total revenues are one of the highest in the region and this is why local banks charge equally high fees. There are 5, 090 ATMs as of September 2004. The three major networks operate 4,839 ATMs nationwide. There are 15 million ATM cardholders in the country. The biggest is Expressnet with 1, 680 machines or 34 percent of total ATMs while Bancnet is the largest ATM consortium. Megalink has the largest number of cardholders with 6.7 million, Bancnet 3.9 million, and Expressnet 3.5 million. Expressnet includes Bank of the Philippine Islands, Land Bank and HSBC. |
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