The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) assures the public, particularly depositors of Banco Filipino that PDIC will pay deposit insurance for all valid deposit accounts as soon as possible. Ninety-seven percent of accounts in Banco Filipino are fully insured.

PDIC shall fasttrack the payment of deposits with balances of P5,000 and below which make up 53% of accounts. We target to start payment for depositors with accounts of P5,000 and below with no outstanding loans and whose addresses are current in the bank records, a week after take over. These depositors need not file claims. We shall mail payment directly to them via registered mail. This will be through postal money order (PMO) which can be encashed at any of the over 1,400 post offices and over 300 LandBank of the Philippines branches nationwide.

Depositors with balances of P5,000 and below who have outstanding loans or whose addresses are not updated, as well as depositors with balances above P5,000 need to file claims.

Claim forms will be distributed during Depositors Forums to be scheduled next week. During the Forums, we will explain procedures and requirements on filing claims and answer depositors’ queries. Schedules for the Forums and for claims receiving will be announced as soon as possible. Depositors may check the PDIC website www.pdic.gov.ph for updates. They may also call the PDIC Helpdesk at 841-4630 and 4631 or email us at pad@pdic.gov.ph

This morning, PDIC personnel have been deployed to the 62 banking units of Banco Filipino nationwide to gather and preserve the bank’s records and assets, preparatory to examination so that the claims servicing process may start. We shall give updates as soon as the examination of bank records is complete. The entire organization has been mobilized to fasttrack payment of deposit insurance.

We also remind borrowers of the bank that they still need to settle their outstanding loans. They should make payments only to authorized PDIC Deputies or designated PDIC accounts with the Philippine National Bank (PNB). Only payments for which PDIC Official Receipts are issued will be credited to the account of the borrower.

Again, we assure depositors that PDIC will pay deposit insurance for all valid accounts.