House panel OKs bill amending BSP charter

The House committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries has passed the proposal to amend the charter of the Bangko Sen­tral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

The Senate has a similar bill but has yet to enact it. Both chamber should approve their versions of the bill before it goes through a bicameral body to draft the final version that would be submitted to President Dute­rte for his signature.

Committee Chairman Ben Evardone said the amendments seek to reinforce corporate and financial viability while strength­ening BSP’s monetary and fi­nancial stability functions.

“The body decided to grant BSP an additional capitaliza­tion of P150 billion, restore tax exemption, among others (through the bill),” Evardone said.

Moreover, additional pow­ers were granted to BSP to pro­vide flexibility to establish ade­quate loss allowances and create reserve buffers against future risks and contingencies.

Evardone said the House panel approved the removal of the thresholds in the growths of monetary aggregates and credit as guiding principles in monetary administration while restoring the BSP’s authority to issue negotiable certificates of indebtedness even during nor­mal times.

To further strengthen the BSP’s financial stability func­tion, the House panel approved the proposal to expand BSP’s supervisory authority to include additional categories of financial institutions.

Also, the committee pro­vided BSP oversight powers of payment and settlement systems or operators and the power to impose sanctions on transfers and acquisitions of substantial shares of banks and quasi-banks engaged in allied services.

“The committee also ap­proved broadening of BSP’s ex­amination authority to include banks’ and quasi-bank’s subsid­iaries, and allowed full flexibility to conduct risk-based supervi­sion,” Evardone said.