MANILA, July 25 – Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) investigation of the alleged fraud, amounting to at least PHP900 million, in Metropolitan Banking & Trust Company (Metrobank) may take a month, a ranking central bank official said.
BSP Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier told journalists that the central bank currently do not have a timeline on when they could finalize the on-going investigation.
“Maybe, at most, a month on the conduct (of the investigation) but it’s different on the writing of the report,” she said.
The central bank official said another factor is whether the “management, after seeing the report, like it to be really exhaustive.”
“So it’s difficult to say what would really be the deadline because it would depend on the nature as well as how things are,” she said.
To date, what the BSP has are the same information they had last week – – that Metrobank assistant vice president Maria Victoria Lopez allegedly opened two bogus accounts where funds from a PHP25 billion credit facility will be deposited.
The fake bank accounts were allegedly opened under the name of food and beverage company Universal Robina Corporation (URC).
Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) arrested Lopez in a sting operation last week after Metrobank requested for it.
Asked on the possibility that Lopez may have accomplices in the alleged crime, Fonacier said “for this scenario, there may be because how come that person was able to do it.”
“There is that possibility but, as I said, it’s an ongoing investigation so I’m not going to comment on that,” she said.
The BSP official said the banks has initiated moves to recover the funds but she did not elaborate.
“The effect will be, if there’s something that was lost, it will be a loss to the bank. But given the size of Metrobank they can, of course, very well absorb if ever there will be a loss,” she said.
“But I’m also aware that they have efforts now of recovering what was lost. So there are efforts to recover,” she said.
Focacier, meanwhile, said they had repeatedly reminded banks on managing risks such as operations risks.
“It’s a continuing thing as to engaging the bank regarding their risk management especially now that there’s an ongoing examination. It’s part of the assessment of the BSP on how internal controls in the bank are being carried out, and overall risk management system. It’s a usual thing for the BSP to assess these,” she added. (Joann Santiago/PNA)