MANILA — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Thursday said was intensifying the monitoring of cybersecurity threats and ramping up efforts to boost the cyber resilience of financial institutions as digital transactions continued to increase, it said.

Improving cyber resilience of the financial industry is among the central bank's agenda since its roadmap also aims to digitize 50 percent of payment transactions by the end of 2023.

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The BSP is also building a Financial Services Cyber Resilience Plan which aims to collate best practices in the industry in terms of cybersecurity, BSP Technology Risk and Innovation Supervision Department Director Melchor Plabasan said during a banking industry briefing organized by the SGV Financial Services Organization.

He said cyberthreats evolve with digitalization and that most of them are linked to phishing.

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“The downside of digitalization is the increasing number of fraud incidents, scams… Based on our surveillance, it’s still predominantly phishing. Once you have access to credentials, account takeover and after that, unauthorized fund transfer,” Plabasan said.

The Philippines this year mandated the registration of all active SIMs in the country to curb the proliferation of SMS-related phishing scams or "smishing."

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Aside from phishing, fraudsters are also using malware and ransomware to gain unauthorized access to accounts, the BSP said.

Meanwhile, digital bank Maya Bank President Angelo Madrid said digital transformation was not just a “corporate or regulatory problem” since consumers are also responsible when it comes to protecting their financial accounts.

“We always remind our consumers to be very, very careful with their accounts,” Madrid said.

BSP Assistant Governor for Policy and Specialized Supervision Sub-Sector Lyn Javier said digitalization could boost the central bank's financial inclusion drive.

"Digitalization could open more opportunities in terms of bringing in more people into the formal financial system, providing a scope of financial products and services to vulnerable households and to small and medium enterprises and as well as provide a platform for them to sustainable operations,” Javier said.

Digitalization is also important for sustainable finance, she said.

“Financial inclusion, digitalization, and sustainability are interrelated," she said, adding that that 95 percent of banks regulated by BSP have submitted transition plans for sustainable finance framework.

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