The Central Bank of the Philippines’ Peso Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) Management Committee issued amendments to Section 1401.15 of the Manual of Regulations for Payment Systems, updating incident management requirements for connectivity and system-availability issues affecting Peso RTGS operational processes such as report generation, transaction monitoring, and receipt of settlement notifications. Participants must coordinate with the Bangko Sentral through official communication channels to determine whether an incident originates from the Peso RTGS system or from the participant’s systems or connection, and the revised rules take effect immediately. If the incident originates from the Peso RTGS system, participants may opt to use alternative settlement mechanisms if the issue remains unresolved two hours from incident confirmation and must monitor official advisories. If the incident originates from the participant, it must conduct an immediate investigation, apply its internal incident management framework, submit an Incident Notification Report to the Bangko Sentral within one hour of discovery, coordinate closely on resolution, and consider activating its business continuity plan, with optional use of alternative settlement mechanisms if the issue remains unresolved two hours from discovery. The memorandum also sets out available alternatives, including bilateral netting, paying-agent arrangements, and the Appendix 1401-5 business continuity plan for banks and other financial institutions, and multilateral netting and joint business continuity plans for financial market infrastructures and clearing switch operators, with operational business continuity procedures covering file upload and on-behalf uploading arrangements and a provision allowing the Bangko Sentral to refuse or defer processing of suspicious or non-compliant files while keeping participants responsible for file accuracy and integrity.
Central Bank of the Philippines 2026-04-01
Central Bank of the Philippines amends Peso RTGS incident management with one-hour participant reporting and two-hour fallback settlement triggers
The Central Bank of the Philippines’ Peso Real-Time Gross Settlement Management Committee amended Section 1401.15 of the Manual of Regulations for Payment Systems to update incident management requirements for connectivity and system-availability issues affecting Peso RTGS operations. The rules clarify coordination with the Bangko Sentral to identify incident origin, impose stricter timelines and reporting obligations on participants, and set conditions for using alternative settlement mechanisms. The memorandum details available alternatives, including bilateral and multilateral netting, paying-agent arrangements, and business continuity procedures, while allowing the Bangko Sentral to refuse or defer processing of suspicious or non-compliant files.