THE BANGKO SENTRAL ng Pilipinas (BSP) processed 62.4% more financial consumer complaints in 2024 compared to the previous year.

“Our office receives different kinds of consumer complaints and as of 2024, that’s our latest available data, we received around 70,000 complaints. But out of those 70,000 complaints, we only have around 30% which are on unauthorized transactions,” BSP Consumer Complaints Resolution Office Director Janice G. Ayson-Zales said.

This is higher than the 43,115 complaints recorded in 2023.

Less than half or 41% of the cases brought to the BSP in 2024 were resolved in favor of the complaints, the official said.

Ms. Ayson-Zales noted that financial institutions are usually the first level of recourse for consumer complaints, which means some concerns do not reach the central bank.

“For mediation cases, in 2023, we had 322 cases with a 69% success rate. For 2024, we had 703 at an 83% success rate. As of May 2025, we already have 400 mediation cases in our office, so as you will see, complaints being filed with the BSP are really rising,” BSP Financial Inclusion and Consumer Empowerment Sub-Sector Managing Director Charina B. De Vera-Yap said.

BSP Deputy Governor Elmore O. Capule added that these were resolved in favor of consumers.

“Because under the Financial Consumer Protection Act, if it escalates into adjudication, then the financial institutions lose. There is no remedy of appeal. It’s final and they’re only remedy is to go to the Court of Appeals… They can only escalate to the courts if there is great abuse of discretion or lack of jurisdiction,” he said.

The BSP said the number of consumer complaints could decrease this year with the implementation of the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (AFASA) as banks will be more proactive in catching anomalous transactions.

“With the passage of the AFASA, we are anticipating that complaints will go down because, for example, if the banks are able to implement the FMS (fraud management system), in case there are behavioral anomalies, the bank will stop the transaction… So, there will be no more complaints that will be elevated to the BSP because the bank itself will stop the transaction,” Ms. Ayson-Zales said.

Banks with at least P75 million in their monthly network value of transactions for the last six months will be required to adopt FMS under the rules.

Still, Ms. De Vera-Yap said that historically, customer complaints rise whenever there are pro-consumer regulations.

“That’s because more people are becoming aware of their rights and they know that they have this redress mechanism in the BSP, or even in their financial institutions. We don’t want the complaints to increase, but I guess that’s one of the consequences of having this new law, which is really pro-consumer,” she said.

“When they hear that there’s this law which can protect them, we are assuming that more people will also be using or will be complaining and using the redress mechanisms in place in the BSP as well as in the law enforcement agencies.”

The central bank this month released three circulars that contain the implementing rules of the AFASA, which was signed in July 2024 and aims to help prevent and penalize financial cybercrime.

The rules allow the regulator to probe financial accounts suspected to be involved in prohibited acts identified under the law. BSP-supervised institutions can also freeze disputed funds related to these incidents.

Prohibited acts or offenses under the AFASA include money mule activities and social engineering schemes, which could be considered economic sabotage if it involves three or more people as perpetrators or victims, mass mailers, or human trafficking, as well as opening a financial account under a fictitious name or using the identity or identification documents of another person.

Financial institutions are also required to adopt stricter information technology risk management measures to protect their customers from fraudulent schemes done online. These include adopting fraud management systems, as well as safeguards like the limitation on the use of interceptable authentication mechanisms like one-time passwords (OTPs).

Banks have been given six months to update their own frameworks to take the AFASA’s implementing rules into account and one year to adopt FMS and new security measures for consumers as alternatives or to supplement OTPs. — A.M.C. Sy

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