THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has instructed financial institutions to enhance their surveillance and monitoring measures to prevent incidents of vote buying and selling ahead of the midterm elections scheduled in May.
Under Memorandum 2025-006, the BSP called on BSP-supervised financial institutions (BSFIs) to reinforce their measures and controls to ensure that appropriate customer onboarding processes, effective fraud management systems (FMS), and ongoing account and transaction monitoring capabilities can respond to fraudulent activities.
The central bank said BSFIs should consider scenarios such as the concentration and significant number of account registrations in areas identified to have rampant vote-buying and vote-selling, and large cash transactions and/or encashment of checks during the election period.
BSFIs were also told to look at unusual transaction flows between accounts, digital bank banking, and digital wallets including the velocity and frequency of transactions, and the unusual volume and value in cash in or cash out channels.
The memorandum comes after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) issued Resolution 11104 dated January 28, 2025, which provides for stricter mechanisms against vote buying and selling.
The midterm elections are scheduled on May 12, 2025. The campaign period for senatorial candidates and party-list groups started on February 11, and will last until May 10, 2025; and from March 28 to May 10 for candidates for the House of Representatives and local posts. (GMA Integrated News)
