Financial consumer protection

We have a Customer Assistance Program (CAP), which was established by the Customer Experience Management Office (CXMO) to institutionalize guidelines that will help ensure that feedback from existing and potential clients are handled appropriately, as required by the Bank’s consumer protection policies. The designated Customer Assistance Officers (CAOs) have undergone onsite training so that they are equipped to address customer issues and ensure compliance with the Bank’s Consumer Protection Program. There is a continuous information and education campaign on the Financial Consumer Protection (FCP) Program to help propagate awareness.  Since 2018, CXMO continuously conducted roll-outs and on-site training on FCP and alignment meetings with the CAOs in various business areas.

In July 2020, CXMO was changed to Client Experience Center (CXC) and the re-organization integrated all the major customer touchpoints which is part of the Bank’s next phase of its transformation journey as we refocus our efforts on customer experience.  CXC is now composed of Customer Care, Service Quality and Governance. The Service Quality unit conducts a Service Quality Review (SQR), where various business units present their performance updates on their defined service quality goals.  Business process improvements are discussed here to deepen customer engagement and address specific customer needs. There are also related policies in place such as the BPI Financial Consumer Protection Program and Complaints Management and Reporting to properly equip our bank personnel in the handling of customer feedback. Preventive measures and treatment plans from business units with top customer concerns are presented to senior management regularly for appropriate service improvements and customer satisfaction.

A new and more robust system to gather complaints data was acquired for the use of the enterprise which was launched on the last part of Q4 2021, this replaces the Customer Feedback Database which was created in 2017. This is a vital tool in identifying areas of concern and process improvements which is part of the FCP program.

As part of our Customer Assistance Program (CAP), different touch points or channels are in place where clients can file their feedback. These include our Contact Center via phone, e-mail, and social media accounts, Customer Care, branches, and the business units. Our employees are guided by the Employee Code of Business Conduct and Ethics which already includes consumer protection and internal bank policies in handling complaints and CAP where client feedback, specifically complaints, are classified with corresponding turn-around-time which are responded accordingly.

We continuously track and monitor customer issues and feedback concerning our products and services. Action plans were implemented to ensure that the most pressing and important issues raised by clients were resolved within the committed turnaround times. Compliance rate for complaints resolution to our internal turnaround time was 98.63% in 2022, up from 96.75% in 2021. As of year-end 2022, 98.89% of complaints received have been resolved. The enterprise-wide complaint report is regularly reported to BPI Management. Complaint intensity decreased by 5% from 2021 to 2022. This is calculated as every one complaint per 1,000 transactions.

Since the establishment of the Framework in 2017, we have fully complied with product and service information and labeling regulations and/or voluntary codes. In 2022, there were no confirmed incidents of non-compliance.