The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has directed banks and financial institutions to refrain from facilitating e-Sabong transactions after President Duterte ordered the suspension of all operations of the gambling activity.
BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno issued Memorandum No. 2022 – 026 instructing all BSP-supervised financial institutions to stop processing e-Sabong transactions as the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) ordered the shutdown of all gaming websites and cease gaming operations.
Diokno said all banks and financial institutions to delist e-Sabong entities and operators in the list of merchants accessible in the BSFIs apps such as mobile and internet.
Given the possibility of accountholders with remaining funds in its
e-Sabong accounts sourced from their e-wallet accounts, the BSP chief said all banks should advise affected clients to cash out funds from their e-Sabong
accounts to their e-wallet accounts within 30 calendar days.
According to the regulator, banks should issue a notification to their customers and the merchants or e-Sabong operators regarding the transitory requirement.
After the lapse of the transitory period, the linkage of e-money wallet to e-Sabong account should be disabled in the system including the merchant or e-Sabong operator account.
As previously communicated in Circular Letter No. 2O21-O12 dated 06
February 2021 and Memorandum No. 2O18-OO2 dated 17 January 2018, BSFIs shall deal only with gambling and/or online gaming business that are authorized, licensed or registered with the appropriate government agency duly
empowered by law or its charter to license/authorize entities or business to engage in such activities.
“Hence, it must be further clarified that, this excludes e-Sabong operators – the operations of which have been suspended upon order by the President,” Diokno said.
