The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said it plans to implement stiffer penalties on banks — especially the large lenders — that fail to comply with reporting standards, doubling the amount proposed earlier.
In a draft circular that is now being circulated and onward till Sept. 30, 2025, the BSP set a higher penalty of up to P10,000 a day for non-compliant banks with an asset size of above P400 billion. This doubles the P5,000 penalty proposed in an earlier version of the circular.
For banks with assets of P50 billion to P400 billion, reporting violations will have a fine of P5,000 a day, up from P4,000 proposed previously.
Meanwhile, the BSP retained its earlier proposed rates for mid-sized and smaller banks.
Based on the draft circular, a daily penalty of P3,000, P2,000 and P1,000 will be imposed on non-compliant banks with assets of P10 billion to P50 billion, P1 billion to P10 billion, and up to P1 billion, respectively.
Additional sanctions
Until corrected, reporting errors will continue to draw penalties with possible additional non-monetary sanctions under existing regulations.
Aligning penalties with banks’ asset sizes will ensure there is “systemic importance and risk proportionality,” the BSP said.
The central bank emphasized that reports submitted to the BSP must be complete, accurate, timely and adaptable to be considered compliant with its reporting standards.
“The Bangko Sentral espouses a data-driven approach to decision-making in support of its mandate to promote financial stability,” the draft circular said. “Banks are expected to adopt a sound reporting governance framework that promotes the integrity, accuracy, and timeliness of reports submitted,” it added.
More enhancements
The draft circular amends Section 171 of the Manual of Regulations for Banks. To improve data integrity, it updates governance framework, including responsibilities of the board of directors, senior management, compliance units and internal auditors.
Other enhancements introduced in the proposed circular include removing the categorization of reports, as well as the distinction between primary and secondary reports; modifying the authorized signatories of bank reports; and removing the notarization requirement for reports which are not required by law to be notarized.
The draft circular also abolished an entire section on habituality and demerit points, with repeat violations to be tracked via dashboards for supervisory action, the BSP said.
It will also implement a new deadline for select prudential and regulatory reports.
The BSP wants to streamline reporting procedures by puling out the outdated classification of “Category A” and “Category B” reports, and changing the guidelines on authorized signatories.
To ensure efficiency in data preparation and timely validation, reports filed via the Prudential Reporting Innovation and Monitoring Engine (PRIME) will be shortened.
Deadlines
The BSP wants banks to submit financial reporting packages within 10 banking days from the reference period, instead of the current 15. Consolidated reports will also be due 20 days, instead of the previous 30.
Once approved, the proposed circular will take effect within 15 days after its publication.
The BSP will give banks six months to prepare their systems and processes to ensure it will comply with the new rules.
