Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) is reforming its internal systems to ensure it can act faster on suspicious transactions.
“We are centralising some functions,” RCBC Treasury Group Head Raul Victor Tan said during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s sixth hearing into the $81-million money-laundering scandal on Tuesday (April 19).
Also read: RCBC open to returning Bangladesh money
Tan explained: “The head office can now centrally hold a transaction once we receive a request and do an independent verification separate from the branch.”
RCBC also lowered the threshold amounts for transactions that bank branches are required to automatically report to the head office. Bank officials declined to identify thresholds, however, for reasons of confidentiality.
The Yuchengco-owned bank has been at the centre of a firestorm, after the $81 million stolen by hackers from the Bangladesh Bank was wired to four bank accounts in RCBC’s Jupiter branch last month.
It has been heavily criticised by legislators and regulators for its sluggish response throughout the time that the dirty money sat in its bank accounts.
Senator Sergio Osmeña III said RCBC should have immediately noticed something was wrong as early as February 5, when four of its accounts — dormant for months — received sizeable dollar deposits. The account holders were later found to be fictitious.
RCBC then received requests from Bangladesh Bank afterwards to freeze the said accounts. However, the money was still taken out — although by who, how and why, the Senate committee is still unsure.
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Bank officials say RCBC Jupiter branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito ignored the stop requests and fast-tracked the withdrawals for businessman Kam Sin Wong.
Deguito counters it was the head office that ignored the requests, clearing the transactions and crediting them immediately to the accounts. Once cleared and credited, she said, the bank cannot prevent a depositor from taking out his or her money.
Related: Emotional Deguito points finger at RCBC’s top officials
She admitted, though, that she didn’t file a suspicious transactions report despite the huge sums of money that came in.
Tan said it was the head office that had to prompt Deguito to file the report. The Jupiter branch was allegedly instructed to file a report as early as February 5, but it only completed the report on February 11.
