Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Sunday urged the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to ensure that financial consumers who were victimized by the recent online banking hacking incident are protected while its investigation is ongoing.

Gatchalian said he is considering filing a resolution seeking a Senate probe into the reported online banking hacking incident that hounded BDO’s online banking system, saying it is important to look into the country’s banking system during this time of a COVID-19 pandemic where most financial consumers have resorted to online transactions.

According to Gatchalian, a cousin was also a victim of the hacking incident, which he believes was “more sophisticated” than what he experienced when he was defrauded by hackers who illegally used his credit card to order food worth P1-million last January.

“In a sense, from the reports that I got from the internet, there was a breach in the security of BDO as well as, the fact that the hackers managed to penetrate BDO’s system,” Gatchalian said in a phone interview.

“So without preempting the investigation of the BSP, it’s important to protect the consumers—the financial consumers—kasi hindi naman kasalanan ng financial consumers ito (This is not the fault of the financial consumers),” Gatchalian stressed.

“If it’s proven that it was a breach in their online secuirty then, first and foremost, the consumers should be protected,” he added.

The issue stemmed from complaints of disgruntled BDO account holders who took to social media to vent their complaints after they were scammed.

Bank account holders who were victimized pointed out disclosed how cash were transferred by the scammer to one Mark D. Nagoyo that has multiple UnionBank accounts through BDO’s online banking system.

Victims claimed they experienced unauthorized cash transactions in their BDO online banking account even though they did not receive a one-time-password (OTP) alert.

Gatchalian also appealed to the banks involved to consider suspending their online banking system while the BSP’s investigation is still pending.

“If they need to shut down the online banking while the investigation is ongoing, I suggest they consider it, because it may happen again,” he said.

“While it is not yet clear how they can protect their consumers from being defrauded online, I suggest they temporarily stop the online banking accounts,” Gatchalian said.

Gatchalian also said it is imperative that the Senate considers a review of the BSP’s mandate with regards to security and protection of online financial consumers.

Because as far as he is concerned, the security audit and the responsibility of ensuring that online banking features are “unhackable” lies with the banks.

“In other words, BSP is not auditng the banks. So it’s up to the banks to make sure that their security would not be breached. And its not clear if BSP is monitoring or even making sure that the banks are doing their responsibility,” he pointed out.

“So it’s also not clear who protects the consumer. It’s also not clear who is responsible for that. There’s also really a lack of legislation protecting financial consumers,” he said adding there is a need to strengthen the powers of the BSP to audit security features of the banks.

“I’m looking at filing a resolution precisely because with the pandemic everyone’s moving online. Kung ganito mangyayari (If this is what would happen) all of us are vulnerable,” he emphasized.

“We have to be very clear on how banks are protecting financial consumers and at the same time figure out what the government can do to protect the consumers,” he stressed.