The Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has approved the enhanced guidelines on voluntary surrender of a banking license either with a plan to proceed to voluntary dissolution and liquidation or to keep the entity’s corporate/cooperative life and convert into a non-bank entity.

The streamlining of the guidelines emphasizes the primary requirement that only a bank in sound financial condition and does not have any of the grounds to prohibit it from doing business under Section 30 of Republic Act 7653 or the New Central Bank Act, as amended, may be allowed to undergo voluntary surrender of its banking license.

The guidelines cover instances of voluntary surrender where no creditors will be affected during the resulting voluntary dissolution or the conversion into a non-bank entity. At the minimum, the applicant bank will ensure immediately accessible funds equivalent to its outstanding deposit obligations to provide assurance on the repayment of depositors.

The guidelines also stressed that even after the surrender of banking license, the BSP may impose sanctions to concerned bank’s directors, officers and employees who are found to have violated banking laws, rules and regulations.