Senator Grace Poe on Monday pushed for the passage of a measure that would provide increased protection for bank account holders and consumers of other financial products.

Poe made the call as her panel, the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies, conducted a hearing on the proposed Financial Consumer Protection (FCP) Act, an initiative also being supported by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

The hearing also took into account the bank hacking incident that was reported last December 2021, where around 700 online bank accounts of BDO Unibank were compromised.

Poe’s panel also took note of changes in the bank's terms and conditions, with new depositors required to agree to a waiver that they will not hold the bank liable for any fraud.

The senator said the BSP, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other financial regulators as well as financial service providers should work doubly harder to provide better security and faster solutions for consumers who fall victim to rampant cybercrimes.

“It's one thing for people to lose money from scams but it's another issue when they lose money in institutions vetted by regulators. When people lose money from a risk-free instrument such as a deposit account, it undermines confidence not only in the bank but also in the industry,” Poe said during the hearing.

“What's heartbreaking is that for many people, the amount of P5,000 or P10,000 is actually their means of survival for the coming weeks. That’s why not to have the loss resolved right away is really a dilemma,” lamented Poe.

“It’s sad what they think they can get away with if they are not called upon to explain or to desist from implementing such policy,” she pointed out.

During the hearing, the BSP said that the top three cybercrimes of 2020 were account takeovers or identity theft, phishing, and social engineering schemes including card-not-present fraud. And as digital transactions increased during the pandemic, cybercrime rate also increased.

Poe said that att a time when the government is pushing for digitalization, building the public's trust in the country's banking system should be priority.

“The pleas of our people who unduly lose their hard-earned money should not fall on deaf ears, and it is our hope that this ceases with the passage of this measure,” she stressed.