December 17, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has updated its policy on penalties and sanctions for erring participants in the Peso Real-Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), a large value-payment system that enables fund transfers between financial institutions on a real-time basis.
This follows Monetary Board Resolution 1368, which approved amendments to Section 621 of the Manual of Regulations for Payment Systems (MORPS).
“Depending on the gravity of the offense committed by a participant, the BSP may impose penalties and sanctions,” the central bank said.
“This may include fines, suspension of the participant’s privilege to avail themselves the intraday settlement facility and suspension or termination of the participant’s access to the Peso RTGS payment system. Repeat offenders shall be meted with stiffer penalties and sanctions,” it said.
Under the new rules, universal and Islamic banks face the steepest penalties, with fines reaching P75,000 per incident for issues such as improper liquidity management or failure to enhance systems.
For instance, failure to manage liquidity can result in penalties ranging from P75,000 for universal banks to P20,000 for rural banks and small financial institutions.
Failing to manage liquidity include queuing a transaction for over 15 minutes, rejection of more than three transactions per day due to insufficient balance of the settlement account and cancellation of more than three transactions a day.
Habitual late bulk settlements will incur fines of up to P10,000 for universal banks and P4,000 for smaller institutions.
Failure to notify the BSP in a timely manner of the participant’s placement under insolvency, bankruptcy or rehabilitation will incur penalties of P20,000 for non-bank participants that are not quasi-banks.
If financial institutions do not follow the prescribed messaging standard, including mandatory message contents, the BSP may impose a fine of P5,000 per incident.
Requests for manual settlement or transaction adjustments exceeding the allowed limit of three per quarter may incur penalties ranging from P3,000 to P15,000 per adjustment, depending on the financial institution’s classification.
Non-compliance with settlement timelines set by the BSP can also lead to penalties ranging from P50,000 for universal banks to P10,000 for rural banks and smaller financial institutions.
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