BPI Deadline Causes Panic Among Its Clients

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Kudos to the media for causing alarm and probable loss of clients for BPI. Were you among those who joined the BPI Madness?

The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) has recently announced that there is a deadline for clients to comply with information requirements in on September 30, and not on August 31 as it originally said. BPI corporate communications head Tricia Quiambao clarified that the "deadline should be by the end of September, not August.

But this announcement pertains only to a few clients whom they contacted individually, and not everyone. Their latest announcement is that there is no deadline for everyone else.

Their recent advisory didn’t sit well with many of their customers who took to social media to lash out at the bank. The ir branches were even full the past days because of the panic among BPI clients who had to rush to their respective branches to update their bank information. BPI gave a deadline for clients to update their information before they lose all electronic access to their bank accounts but it was not clear if hey were referring to a few or all of their clients.

"Pursuant to BSP Circular 706, clients are requested to update their information on or before September 30, 2016.

How? 

1. Fill out and sign the Customer Information Sheet (CIS) and Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) Form. You can visit your branches or download the forms via BPI Express Online. 2. Present the accomplished form and submit a photocopy of one valid, recent and photo-bearing ID.3. Submit to your nearest branch or send via mail.
If you have updated your client information this year, you may disregard this advisory."

I smell something fishy here. Why all of a sudden do we need to update our personal information? Maybe there is a loophole or exploits within the bank since the other banks have no similar announcement?

The downloaded forms to be printed and then to be presented to the bank totaled four copies and mind you, with colored layouts. It will entail expensive printing costs. Just go to the bank and ask for the forms to be filled out so that we will not shoulder any printing costs.

What about seafarers mam? How will they comply with the requirement?

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