Bangko Sentral raises red flag vs. Global Investment Bank

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Thursday warned consumers against the unauthorized banking activities of Global Investment Bank (GIB), which also goes by the name of GIB Philippines Bank Limited (GPBL).

"On its website (http://www.gibank.net), GIB is misrepresenting itself to the public as a licensed bank in the Philippines and authorized to carry out banking transactions for international activities," the central said.

"GIB has no Certificate of Authority to operate as a bank in the Philippine and is not licensed to accept deposits," the regulator said.

Don't transact with GIB/GPBL

"In view of this, the BSP strongly advises the public not to transact with GIB/GPBL," the central bank noted.

There are fraudsters who mislead potential victims by providing a link to a spoofed or fake BSP website created deliberately to deceive and make it appear that it is listed as a BSP-supervised entity, according to the central bank.

"To make sure that the correct website is accessed, the URL should be directly entered into the web browser instead of clicking links from unknown sources," it said.

This will minimize the risk that sensitive information, such as usernames and passwords, are captured by the fraudsters in their own computer terminals and eventually used for unauthorized transactions on behalf of the legitimate user.

The contacts page of GIB website carries the BSP seal at the bottom, following a row of images from Global Finance, Finance Asia, The Asian Banker, and Asset Asian Awards. 

The various images indicate that GIB has been cited or received an award from the respective organizations.

A quick check of the Global Finance website reveals that the regional winner of the Best Bank in Asia-Pacific 2014 was DBS Bank and among the banks in the Philippines, BDO Unibank bagged the award.

Searching for Global Investment Bank or GIBank in Finance Asia or Global Finance yielded no relevant results.

An "Offshore Banking" note on the landing page contains several typos and grammatical errors, aside from discussing the use of "anonymous cards" to enjoy "a tax haven."

The "note" was supposedly written by a Mr. Geoff Bascand. A real Geoff Bascand exists, but as the Deputy Governor and Head of Operations of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

In their "About Us" page, GIBank claims to be licensed financial institution, but the link leads to a domain hosting page. The names of the company heads were all from the Reserve Bank of Zealand with no verifiable connections to GIBank. Their photos also do not match.

Its financial stability reports are seemingly available for download in PDF format, but the URL loops you back to the same page each time you click. Almost every other page on the GIBank website eventually ends in an "open an account" option and is littered with stock photos and even a meme. – With Aya Tantiangco/VS, GMA News