A lawmaker has filed a bill proposing to double the maximum insurance protection of the country’s 63- million bank depositors.
Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr. filed House Bill 5812 that increases the maximum deposit insurance coverage from P500,000 to P1,000,000 per depositor per bank.
“We have to restore the full value of protection of the MDIC at today’s prices if we want to encourage Filipinos to continue to keep their money in banks,” said Campos, member for the majority bloc of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries.
The MDIC’s “full value of protection” has been eroded considerably by the general increase in prices over the last 10 years, Campos said.
Campos cited the growing number of Filipino middle-class families, including those with breadwinners abroad, that now have more than P1 million in liquid assets that may be held in banks.
“We are positive that our bill, once enacted, will also help reinforce public confidence in the banking system that plays an indispensable role in driving national economic growth,” Campos said.
Since 2017 alone, tens of thousands of depositors have been affected by the collapse or closure of 41 banks, mostly rural lenders, according to the state-run Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.
HB 5812 bill proposes to amend the PDIC charter.
The MDIC was initially fixed at P10,000 in 1963, and then increased to: P15,000 in 1978; P40,000 in 1984; P100,000 in 1992; P250,000 in 2004; and P500,000 in 2009.
Banks pay for the compulsory insurance premiums that guarantee the MDIC.
The Philippine banking system had P12.745 trillion in total deposits as of Dec. 31, 2018, up 8.8 percent from P11.710 trillion the previous year, according to the PDIC.
The deposits were spread over 62.9 million accounts in 2018, up 10.1 percent from 57.1 million accounts the year before.