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Remittance fees not yet affected by $81-M bank heist –BSP official
There is no evidence yet that the $81-million money laundering issue being investigated by the Senate has affected OFWs in terms of higher cost of sending money to the Philippines, a ranking central bank official said Tuesday.
At the continuation of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on the money laundering case, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) deputy governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. said it is still too early to say whether the issue will result in higher cost of sending remittances to the Philippines.
"With respect to this particular development, there's no evidence yet that it has affected the cost of remittances in the country," Espenilla said when asked by Sen. Ralph Recto if OFWs have become "collateral damage" in the money laundering issue involving money stolen from Bangladesh's central bank.
However, Espenilla admitted that the Philippines "is experiencing increasing difficulty in terms of remittance flows" because of "perceptions" of weak anti-money laundering law in the country.
When asked by Recto if this means a slowdown in the entry of dollars, the BSP official said: "Not that. It's that some of the remittance companies are finding it difficult to find correspondent banks abroad [that will] deal with them."
Espenilla said this is not connected with the money laundering scandal that is currently rocking the country's financial sector, although he admitted that the issue may make it difficult for local remittance companies to do business.
"Factually, this development, we are yet unable to connect this to that situation (money laundering issue). What I'm saying is that situation was already being felt, and a situation like this can conceivable make that even harder," he said.
OFW advocates have expressed worry that the money laundering scam may result in the country being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization tasked to promote measures combating money laundering and terrorist financing, among others, which could make the cost of sending remittances to the Philippines to skyrocket.
OFW advocates said pressure from the FATF could force international branches of the country's biggest banks to close down, leaving OFWs with no choice but to use money-transfer companies in their host countries.
Susan Ople, an OFW advocate and senatorial aspirant, urged the BSP and the Department of Finance (DoF) to come up with a contingency plan and mitigation measures to protect the legitimate OFW remittance industry in light of the ongoing probe into the $81-million casino heist.
