MANILA - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said banks should treat their customers fairly following the controversy over BDO Unibank’s electronic banking terms and conditions which surfaced after the hacking incident in the country’s largest bank.

In a memorandum released on Dec. 22, BSP Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier cited the central bank’s Financial Consumer Protection Framework, which tells banks to uphold the “fair treatment” principle.

Fonacier said a provision of the framework reads: "Terms and conditions are not unfair in that there is significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer."

“Thus, any broad and all-encompassing disclaimer of legal liability on the part of the bank for any losses incurred by their customers is not in conformance with the above-cited regulation,” Fonacier said.

The BSP released the memo after BDO referred to its terms and conditions saying it was not “legally liable” for losses incurred even if depositors did no wrong.

“Loss or damage you may suffer arising out of any improper, fraudulent access or utilization of the BDO Electronic Banking Services due to theft or unauthorized disclosure of User IDs, passwords, ATM PINs/TPINs/MPINs or violation of other security measures with or without your participation,” a section of BDO’s terms and conditions says.

BDO claimed that this liability clause was “standard” in the banking industry.

BDO had earlier said that it was reimbursing around 700 claims after a “sophisticated fraud technique” affected some of its depositors.

A group of depositors whose claims were denied meanwhile said the bank also owed as they still lost money in the bank even though they were careful not to fall for online scams.

The BSP meanwhile said financial institutions under its supervision are also “expected to have in place a Consumer Protection
Risk Management System and Consumer Assistance Mechanism.”

“Non-compliance with the provisions of the aforementioned Circular shall be subject to supervisory enforcement action/s,” Fonacier said.

• Privacy watchdog checks if 'data breach' occurred in BDO hacking complaints

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