The bill seeking to amend provisions in the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (PDIC) Charter is now up for Senate plenary discussions.

Senator Sonny Angara, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, on Wednesday night (Aug. 25), has sponsored Committee Report No. 287 on Senate Bill No. 2365, which seeks to propose amendments in the PDIC Charter with the goal of helping strengthen the country’s banking system and promote people’s faith and confidence in it.

Under the committee report, the bill seeks to empower the PDIC Board of Directors with the flexibility to increase the amount of the maximum deposit insurance coverage or MDIC indexed to inflation or in consideration of other economic factors.

It also seeks to make the PDIC an attached agency of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and remove any overlapping functions between them for better policy and program coordination and collaboration to ensure regulatory efficiency.

The bill also seeks to introduce amendments to ensure that the BSP, PDIC and all other stakeholders in the financial sector would work harmoniously under a collaborative framework.

The measure also seeks to expand the authority of the PDIC to cover non-conventional deposit liabilities of Islamic banks, and make it a pioneer in the establishment of an Islamic Deposit Insurance System or IDIS.

“The main humanitarian challenges the COVID-19 pandemic poses remains squarely within our health systems. Yet it has also disrupted so many other aspects of our society that the attendant problems also deserve our attention and action,” Angara said in his sponsorship speech.

“It’s important to note that even though the pandemic has introduced much uncertainty and anxiety, our people’s faith and confidence in their banking system appears to have been unaffected,” he further said.

“We hope to somehow reward this faith and confidence with a PDIC that is flexible, agile, and fully empowered to lend support whenever the opportunity arises. A quiet financial crisis is brewing across the world,” he added.

“But in passing this measure, we would not be standing idly by. We would be making sure that indeed one day, the good days will return,” Angara reiterated.