Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) led by bankero TG Limcaoco is taking cyber security seriously and decided to hike its spending for digitalization and information technology (IT) by 50 percent this year.
The bankero told the bank’s stockholders during their virtual meeting that there is a substantial increase in the budget for IT-related spending including cyber security this year.
“For 2022, our budget for digital spending and IT-related is really about 50 percent higher than that of 2021,” Limcaoco said.
Last year, the Ayala-led bank spent about P9 billion for its IT-related spending to finance new initiatives such as improving customers’ engagement platforms.
The amount was equivalent to nine percent of BPI’s total revenues last year.
After spending heavily for the establishment of a cybersecurity operations center in 2015 and 2016, BPI COO Ramon Jocson said about five percent of this year’s IT-related spending would be used to address cyber threats.
The incremental investments, Jocson, explained would be used to monitor client and fraudulent behaviors.
