(Bloomberg) -- The Philippine central bank is looking to strengthen its supervision of fintech platforms, an official said, as it probes unauthorized deductions in accounts registered with the nation’s top mobile wallet.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is working to get into the source of the glitch at GCash, Deputy Governor Mamerto Tangonan told reporters on the sidelines of an event in the central province of Cebu on Wednesday.
“We want to know what really was the root cause so that we could review our policy,” Tangonan said. “Sometimes we have the policy, but maybe we need to boost the enforcement.”
The central bank last week said it started an investigation into the GCash incident and the operator of the e-wallet has said all accounts of users remain secure.
GCash has over 94 million registered users mainly in the Philippines, where a large chunk of the nation’s population of around 112 million population have no bank accounts.
Adoption of e-wallets, digital payments and digital technology in the Philippines has increased and will likely be sustained, but the availability of talent and credit for the sector must be improved to support the country’s push to boost financial inclusion, think-tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies said in a 2023 research paper.
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