Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said Monday there is a need to relax the bank secrecy law to prevent the entry of dirty money in the financial system, like the one that happened in February involving $81 million from Bank of Bangladesh.
“The concern is really that since many countries have already lifted their bank secrecy regulations, the Philippines might attract dirty money or laundered money because of the existence of strict bank secrecy laws here. That was the concern,” Tetangco said at the sidelines of a Senate hearing of the committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies.
Bangko Sentral earlier asked Congress to relax the bank secrecy law so that the regulator could further strengthen its enforcement powers. Tetangco said this meant that Bangko Sentral was asking for authority from Congress to be able to look into bank accounts in the course of bank examination.