BSP says to finish probe of GCash by December

THE BANGKO Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) seeks to complete its investigation of e-wallet platform GCash by next month after some users recently reported missing funds.

“It’s still ongoing,” BSP Deputy Governor Mamerto E. Tangonan told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Mactan, Cebu on Wednesday. “We want to be thorough in this because we want to assure the public that it’s safe and that we are keeping it that way.”

He said the probe would likely be completed in about 15 working days, which would be around December.

Earlier this month, several users of GCash, a Philippine mobile payment service owned by Globe Fintech Innovations, Inc. and operated by its unit G-Xchange, Inc., reported unauthorized deductions from their e-wallets.

GCash said it has “completed the necessary wallet adjustments to its affected users,” attributing the incident to a system reconciliation process.

The BSP earlier said it was investigating the incident and ordered GCash to resolve the issue and expedite the process of refunds.

The central bank also said it was seeking to “further identify possible vulnerabilities and review compliance with regulations and policies.”

“When you get to the bottom of things, that will point you (to) any possible policy gaps. Therefore, we have to plug those gaps,” Mr. Tangonan said.

“That’s why we want to know what really was the root cause of this so that we could review our policy. Sometimes, we have the policy but maybe we need to boost the enforcement,” he added.

Mr. Tangonan said tightening regulations would be the “last measure.” “Sometimes you have good regulations in place, but then they just need to be monitored and enforced.”

“Normally, we discuss these things with the highest level of their management because if there are gaps, we want this plugged,” he said. Actions would only be taken if there are violations, he added.

The e-wallet giant has about 94 million users and is considered the largest financial technology company in the country. — Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson