Senator Grace Poe on Thursday scored the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for alerting financial consumers of fake bills emanating from banks’ automated teller machines (ATMs), saying it should not burden the public of a problem they should be solving.

“Reminders by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to be alert of fake bills from ATMs are disquieting and raise the question on how the bogus money can find its way into the banks’ machines,” Poe said in a statement.

“The burden of distinguishing counterfeit bills emanating from banks from genuine ones should not be placed on depositors,” said Poe, who chairs the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies.

In its advisory, the BSP also issued guidelines on how the public can distinguish counterfeit money.

But Poe stressed that ATMs dispensing fake bills is unacceptable and must have no place in the banking system.

She also added that banks should be required to ensure they have sufficient mechanisms and high-technology method that would keep people’s money secured.

“As keepers of the people’s money, banks must at all times ensure state-of-the-art defenses against security breaches,” she said.

“It is our financial institutions that carry the responsibility to steadfastly guard against vulnerabilities and keenly upgrade their systems amidst the changing times to keep our people's unflinching trust in the banking industry,” the senator reiterated.