By Lee C. Chipongian Banks are called to keep the practice of a fair and appropriate lending rates to avoid overindebting borrowers while on COVID-19 lockdown. Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) president Cezar P. Consing yesterday said banks should maintain “reasonable lending rates” and to try to “keep such rates as close as possible to pre-ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) levels.” “As we move into week 3 of the ECQ, the impact of the crisis on the economy, including our corporate and consumer borrowers, is becoming more apparent,” said Consing who is also president and CEO of Bank of the Philippine Islands. He is asking all banks, not just BAP members which are mostly big banks, to also make sure that digital channels are open and always accessible to homebound clients and also to “contribute to (a) stable and liquid financial markets.” Consing also reminded banks to ensure availability of cash in branches and in ATMs, as well as to “maintain a level of branch presence that allows for the execution of transactions that cannot be performed digitally.” “Our country needs our very best efforts in these difficult times,” said Consing. He also acknowledged that since the ECQ was imposed, BAP member banks have “taken extraordinary steps to continue to serve banking customers.” Similar to health workers, bank personnel also encountered difficulties getting to their place of work because of the ECQ barricades. The BAP earlier appealed to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to intervene because a lot of their employees and officers are unable to go to their branches. Bank personnel are also subject to Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) ID certification but the BSP has made it easier to comply by allowing authorized banks to select a range of IATF ID serial numbers and simply print this along with the bank company ID. Banks will only have to download the templates and print its own IDs with the IATF serial numbers plus the employee IDs. The IATF ID is available for all BSP supervised financial institutions such as banks, non-stock savings and loan associations, money exchange companies/remittance and transfer companies, electronic money-issuers, payment system operators, and pawnshops. BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno has asked the Philippine National Police and Local Government Units frontliners to ensure that the “public’s financial needs are met in these challenging times” by not preventing bank personnel from getting to their place of work. Majority of the country’s big banks have limited branches opened during the ECQ and also ensured continued delivery of banking services particularly cash availability through ATMs and digital platforms. The BSP’s latest surveillance report indicated that “banks remain generally open and functional” during the ECQ. “There are adjustments as to shortened banking hours, temporary closure of branches and leaner staff in some banks. But these are mainly precautionary mea¬sures to delay the spread of COVID-19,” said the BSP. But, the BSP said COVID- 19 is “a double-edged sword for banks.” “It poses straightforward questions such as whether to close branches because few people want to visit public places or to keep them open, for fear that shuttering sends the wrong message to the public. But, the role of banking services in keeping public service and economic activity afloat is essential and critical particularly in an extreme situ¬ation like COVID-19. It is for this reason that the BSP has adopted measures to lessen the potential impact on the BSFIs through the grant of regulatory and rediscounting relief measures. The BSP will monitor banks who will pursue such relief measures,” said the BSP. After the BSP released a package of regulatory relief measures, banks in turn have also offered flexible arrangements to borrowers by extending loan payments and waiving fund transfer fees and charges. The BSP noted that a lot of large lenders have announced they will extend the payment for its consumer loan services, including credit card payments and loans to small and medium-sized enterprises.