BPI goes offline

The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) yesterday went back to the old days — processing transactions manually — after its interconnection system bogged down nationwide.

BPI was mum on what caused the system-wide problem.

In a statement, BPI vice president Damilo Kimseng said “BPI branches have been on offline mode today. However, branches continued to fulfill transactions as we have existing stand-in processes for offline situations.”

At the bank’s Mabolo branch in Cebu City, tellers accepted offline deposit transactions only after explaining the situation to their clients. “We tell them that we can only accept offline transactions but such could only be posted into their accounts once the system goes back up,” a bank staffer told Cebu Daily News.

A male client said even online banking was down when he tried to login in the morning. The bank’s ATM however, remained functional.

As of 3pm yesterday, Kimseng said branches started going online in batches.

BPI has over 700 branches nationwide.

In Cebu, there are 32 BPI branches and four BPI Family Bank branches.