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LAST month’s earthquake in Taiwan has disrupted the international
online transactions and communication lines of Philippine banks,
with most of the lenders suffering from delays in the remittance of
overseas Filipino worker accounts, according to industry sources.
Raul Dimayuga, Bank of the Philippine Islands
(BPI) Direct president, said remittance service operations have yet
to normalize due to the disruption of communication lines.
He said the processing time has slowed down by a
few hours, but beneficiaries in the Philippines can still receive
their money within 24 hours.
“Instead of real time, the consumers [suffered
a delay in] receiv[ing] their remittances for a few hours,”
Dimayuga said.
The disruption in communication lines in turn
has increased banks’ working hours, he said.
“The inconvenience are on us not on
consumers,” Dimayuga added.
Marcelo Ayes, a senior official of the Rizal
Commercial Banking Corp.’s financial management group, said that
the impact, however, would be minor as “most of the banks have
secured lines.”
Criselda Santillan, Megalink general manager,
said ATM transactions were not affected, because these are local
transactions.
“Even our online banking transactions were not
affected,” she added.
--Maricel E. Burgonio
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