A bill seeking to double the maximum insurance protection of the country’s 63 million bank depositors has been filed at the House of Representatives.
According to a statement on Tuesday, Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr. filed House Bill 5812, which proposes to increase the maximum deposit insurance coverage (MDIC) from PHP500,000 to PHP1,000,000 per depositor per bank.
“We have to restore the full value of protection of the MDIC at today’s prices if we want to encourage Filipinos to continue to keep their money in banks,” Campos said.
Campos said the MDIC’s “full value of protection” has deteriorated significantly by the general increase in prices over the last 10 years.
He noted that there is a growing number of Filipino middle-class families that now have more than PHP1 million in liquid assets, which may be held in banks.
The lawmaker cited the state-run Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) stating that tens of thousands of depositors have been affected by the collapse or closure of 41 banks, mostly rural lenders in 2017 alone.
“We are positive that our bill, once enacted, will also help reinforce public confidence in the banking system that plays an indispensable role in driving national economic growth,” Campos said.
He said the MDIC was initially fixed at PHP10,000 in 1963, and then increased to: PHP15,000 in 1978; PHP40,000 in 1984; PHP100,000 in 1992; PHP250,000 in 2004; and PHP500,000 in 2009.
