By Melissa Luz T. Lopez, Senior Reporter

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is currently looking into internal lapses that led to a reported P900-million fraud case faced by Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank), alongside criminal raps lodged against the bank official said to have crafted the scheme.

A newspaper report alleged that a vice president of the listed lender has engineered an internal fraud that has costed the bank at least P900 million by using loan proceeds to fake bank accounts which eventually ended up in her own account.

“We are looking into it already,” BSP Governor Nestor A. Espenilla, Jr. told reporters on Friday, noting that the regulator has already deployed a team to investigate the bank.

“We first have to establish facts. Our banks have their natural internal controls precisely to prevent these things from happening, so we will have to look into the adequacy of those controls if in fact a significant crime happened within the bank.”

In the report, Metrobank Assistant Vice President and Corporate Service Management head Maria Victoria S. Lopez is said to have crafted fake loan disbursements using the bank’s long-time client Universal Robina Corp. (URC) in tranches of P30 million.

National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Dante A. Gierran said the Metrobank official has been in custody over charges of qualified theft, falsification, and violation of the General Banking Law.

The bank lodged a complaint before the NBI on July 13 after discovering “irregularities” in letters and checks filed by Ms. Lopez on the client’s behalf, which were later discovered to be fake.

Ms. Lopez, who has been working at the bank for 30 years and earning around P250,000 a month, was nabbed by authorities during an entrapment operation last Monday. She had ordered the debit of P2.25 million from the loan account, but the bank was able to confirm that the client was unaware of the supposed loan, which led to her arrest.

In a press briefing on Friday, NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin said the agency is conducting a follow through investigation on the alleged fraud.

“The biggest loss on this is the integrity of the banking system and the internal control system of the bank,” he said.

The NBI presented Ms. Lopez, who wore an orange shirt and covered her face with a scarf, during the briefing but did not make any statement.

METROBANK SHARES FALL
Shares in Metrobank dropped by 5.03% to P86.90 on Friday, coming from P91.50 apiece the previous day.

In a disclosure, Metrobank assured that the bank will continue with its day-to-day operations.

“The Bank is reinforcing its commitment to the highest standards of integrity and upholds the protection of its customers as its main priority. No customer has been affected in this incident,” the George S.K. Ty-owned lender told the local bourse.

“In the context of the Bank’s P1.9 trillion financial resources, rest assured that we continue to operate business as usual for the bank and our customers.”

Metrobank is the Philippines’ second-biggest bank in asset terms and controls P1.9 trillion worth of resources. It raked in P18.1 billion in net income last year, and P5.6 billion during the first three months of 2017.

In a separate statement, URC said it will keep its business deals with Metrobank despite the case, after bank president Fabian S. Dee assured that the conglomerate’s accounts would not be affected.

The Gokongwei-led firm said URC would not incur any losses while active bank accounts will be kept intact.

For its part, the Bankers Association of the Philippines said it is “confident” that Metrobank will be able to resolve the issue: “This appears to be an isolated incident and we are confident the facts will arise from the ongoing investigations being carried out by both Metrobank and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.”

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR