The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have signed an information-sharing agreement aimed at speeding up the investigation and prosecution of financial account scams.
Signed on Wednesday, July 22, the agreement establishes procedures for the DOJ to request and receive financial account information from the BSP’s Consumer Account Protection Office under the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (AFASA) and BSP Circular No. 1214.
The arrangement is expected to help investigators trace suspicious transactions and identify individuals behind financial accounts used in online scams. It also requires the shared information to be used only for authorized purposes and protected in accordance with the law.
BSP general counsel Roberto Figueroa, representing BSP governor Eli Remolona Jr., signed the agreement with DOJ undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty at the BSP headquarters in Manila.
“Stronger institutional collaboration enhances our collective ability to identify organized actors who exploit the financial system, disrupt their operations, and hold them accountable under the law,” Figueroa said.
BSP deputy governor Elmore Capule, adviser to the AFASA Technical Working Group, said the agreement “sends a very strong message that the government is fighting as one to protect the Filipino public.”
The DOJ agreement expands the BSP’s network of data-sharing arrangements with government enforcement and regulatory agencies. In February, the central bank signed similar agreements with the National Bureau of Investigation, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In a separate data-sharing initiative led by the Department of Finance (DOF), the SEC, Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), and BSP signed an agreement intended to improve the completeness and timeliness of the country’s foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics.
The SEC will provide corporate registration records to the PSA and BSP through digital platforms, including the SEC Swift Corporate and Other Records Exchange Protocol and SEC API Marketplace.
The PSA will serve as the central repository of FDI data, while the BSP will continue compiling and publishing the country’s official FDI statistics.
“Finance Secretary Frederick Go, the brains of this undertaking, months ago, called us agencies to work together to identify areas for improvement in the compilation of foreign direct investment statistics and to address existing gaps aimed at strengthening the reporting mechanism necessary for evidence-based decision making,” PSA undersecretary Claire Dennis Mapa said.
SEC chairperson Francisco Ed Lim also credited Go with initiating the project.
“I thank Secretary of Finance Frederick Go — who is not only the brain, but the creator of the project we’re celebrating today through the signing of this Memorandum of Agreement,” Lim said.
The FDI data-sharing system will integrate enterprise-level information with existing reporting mechanisms and include confidentiality safeguards under the Data Privacy Act.
