The Board of Directors of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) has approved to increase the amount of valid deposits of closed bank depositors eligible for outright payment of deposit insurance from P15,000 to P50,000. Valid deposits eligible for payment without the need to file deposit insurance claims are accounts with balances of P50,000 and below, which have no outstanding obligations with the bank as of date of closure, and have complete and updated addresses in the bank’s records.

The PDIC reported that historically, 84.5% of the total number of accounts in a closed bank have balances of P50,000 and below. It is therefore expected that under the new policy, only about 15% of a closed bank’s depositors will be required to file deposit insurance claims. These are depositors who have account balances greater than P50,000 or have outstanding obligations with the closed bank; and those who do not have complete or updated addresses in the bank’s records as of date of closure.

This increase will therefore make it even more convenient for most of the depositors of closed banks because there will be no need to go to the site where PDIC conducts its field operations claims settlement (FOCS) to file claims.

Among the bases for PDIC being named the Deposit Insurance Organization (DIO) of the Year for 2013 by the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) was for significant achievements in banking resolutions and payouts. IADI is a Switzerland-based organization of 71 member deposit insurance organizations across the globe.

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