The Philippine government through the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) or Central Bank, is set to look into the glitch of Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI) that caused panicked to thousands of its customers throughout the Philippines.
BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla, who described the situation as fortunate, was quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer saying that, "We'll investigate (the glitch) as the dust settles and the customers are made whole."
While, BPI denounce rumors that the glitch was caused by hacking incident, many bank users flooded BPI in Manila to check on the status of their accounts.
BPI President Cezar Consing apologized to irate customers for the glitch that caused double credits from April 27 to May 2 but reassured customers that this error can be corrected.
A lady human resource officer, who was quoted by ABS CBN online, said that he lost P 12,000 in her account due to "automatic debit while her co-workers reported negative balances in their accounts.."
BPI released a public statement that the glitch was caused by internal data processing error and not a hacking incident. They also assured that no customers will lose money because the error is already being addressed.
Moreover, as a result of the growing social media users talking about the glitch, BPI appealed to BPI depositors not to post their bank details to avoid identity theft.
The panic mode of bank customers somehow affected the market. BBC reported that BPI shares fell nearly 1% in Manila stock market.
BPI is the oldest existing bank in the Philippines that was established by the Ayala family in 1851.
In 2014, Forbes named BPI as the largest bank in the Philippines when it comes to market value and overall ranking and it was also ranked as the most profitable bank. It has also the largest network that has 831 branches as of today.
