Deposit and Account Services are among the most essential Critical Business Services (CBS) for Equicom Savings Bank because they underpin the institution’s core relationship with customers and enable the safekeeping, access, and management of customer funds.
These services include account opening, deposits, withdrawals, account maintenance, digital access, ATM connectivity, and customer servicing activities that support daily banking operations.
From an operational resilience perspective, disruptions to these services may have immediate impacts on customers, financial transactions, regulatory obligations, and the institution’s reputation.
Consequently, understanding the end-to-end business processes that support this service is critical to ensuring continuity during severe yet plausible disruption scenarios.
As outlined in the BSP Circular No. 1203 Series of 2024 on Operational Resilience, banks are expected to identify critical operations, map dependencies and interconnections, establish impact tolerances, and conduct resilience testing to ensure that critical services remain available during disruptions.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a detailed breakdown of the business processes (Sub-CBS) that support CBS-1 Deposit and Account Services at Equicom Savings Bank and to establish a structured foundation for operational resilience implementation activities.
Readers should understand that identifying a Critical Business Service alone is insufficient; resilience planning requires visibility into the underlying operational components that deliver the service.
By reviewing this chapter, readers will gain an understanding of how the high-level CBS is decomposed into operational activities and how these processes support subsequent stages such as Mapping Dependencies and Connectivity (MD), Mapping Processes and Resources (MPR), Establishing Impact Tolerances (iTo), identifying Severe but Plausible Scenarios (SuPS), and conducting Scenario Testing (ST).
This chapter, therefore, prepares stakeholders with the rationale, context, and structure necessary for the next stages of resilience analysis.
For Equicom Savings Bank, CBS-1 Deposit and Account Services serves as a foundational business service whose resilience must be understood at the process level before further operational resilience activities, such as dependency mapping, scenario testing, and impact tolerance assessment, can be performed effectively.
For Equicom Savings Bank, Deposit and Account Services are among the most fundamental Critical Business Services (CBS) because disruption directly affects customer access to funds, trust in the institution, regulatory obligations, and financial stability.
Equicom provides deposit products, ATM access, and online banking services supporting individuals and SMEs.
In an operational resilience context, BSP requires banks to identify critical operations, map dependencies, establish disruption tolerances, and conduct testing to ensure continuity during severe disruptions.
Table P1: Detailed Processes for CBS-1
|
Sub-CBS Code |
Name of Sub-CBS |
Description of Sub-CBS |
|
1.1 |
Customer Onboarding and Account Application |
Supports customer acquisition through branch, digital, or relationship-based channels. Captures customer information, account preferences, product selection, and application requirements. |
|
1.2 |
Customer Identification and Verification (KYC/CDD) |
Performs Know Your Customer (KYC), Customer Due Diligence (CDD), identity verification, sanctions screening, and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks in accordance with Philippine banking regulations. |
|
1.3 |
Account Approval and Opening |
Reviews and authorises account-opening requests after completion of verification procedures and risk checks, before activating customer accounts. |
|
1.4 |
Initial Funding and Deposit Booking |
Processes first deposits and records opening balances into banking systems while validating the source of funds and account setup requirements. |
|
1.5 |
Product Terms Setup and Account Parameter Maintenance |
Configures account type, interest rates, account features, fees, transaction limits, and product-specific conditions within core banking systems. |
|
1.6 |
Deposit Transactions Processing |
Handles cash deposits, cheque deposits, electronic deposits, payroll credits, and inter-account credits through branches and digital channels. |
|
1.7 |
Withdrawal and Funds Access Processing |
Supports withdrawals via branches, ATMs, online banking, debit cards, and transfer services while validating authorisation and account balances. |
|
1.8 |
Account Servicing and Customer Maintenance |
Manages customer profile updates, account modifications, replacement requests, account closures, signature changes, and account administration requests. |
|
1.9 |
Interest, Fees, and Charges Processing |
Calculates and posts account interest, maintenance fees, penalties, and transaction charges according to account terms and schedules. |
|
1.10 |
Statement, Passbook, and Balance Reporting |
Generates account statements, transaction histories, balance confirmations, passbook updates, and customer reporting services. |
|
1.11 |
Digital Account Access and Channel Integration |
Enables customers to access deposit accounts through internet banking, mobile services, and integrated electronic channels. Equicom offers online and phone banking facilities for customer access. |
|
1.12 |
ATM and Card-Based Access Management |
Supports ATM, debit card issuance, activation, PIN management, card replacement, and customer access through card infrastructure. Equicom maintains ATM services and card-based access facilities. |
|
1.13 |
Account Reconciliation and Exception Handling |
Performs reconciliation between transaction systems, branch operations, and financial records while investigating transaction mismatches and exceptions. |
|
1.14 |
Dormancy, Holds, Restrictions, and Account Control Administration |
Administers dormant accounts, legal holds, account freezes, restrictions, and special account control requirements. |
|
1.15 |
Fraud Monitoring and Transaction Surveillance for Deposit Accounts |
Monitors unusual account behaviour, suspicious transactions, cyber threats, and fraud indicators across banking channels. Equicom has implemented enhanced fraud protection mechanisms for transaction monitoring. |
|
1.16 |
Complaints, Disputes, and Service Recovery |
Handles customer complaints, failed transactions, account disputes, investigation activities, and customer service recovery processes. |
|
1.17 |
Regulatory Reporting and Compliance Monitoring |
Produces mandatory reporting to regulators, compliance monitoring, audit records, and reporting obligations associated with deposit products and customer accounts. |
Under BSP Circular No. 1203, Philippine banks must identify critical operations and ensure they remain within disruption tolerances during operational stress events.
Critical operations should include services that could materially impact customers, institutions, or the financial system if disrupted.
For CBS-1 Deposit and Account Services, operational resilience requirements and examples include:
|
BSP Operational Resilience Requirement |
Application to CBS-1 Deposit and Account Services |
Example for Equicom Savings Bank |
|
Identify Critical Operations |
Determine whether deposit and account services are critical to customers and business continuity |
Account opening, deposits, withdrawals, and online account access are classified as critical operations |
|
Dependency Mapping |
Identify dependencies across people, process, technology, facilities, and third parties |
Core banking platform, ATM network, internet banking platform, branch operations, telecommunications providers |
|
Establish Impact Tolerances |
Define maximum disruption thresholds |
ATM access unavailable for >2 hours or online banking unavailable for >4 hours exceeds tolerance |
|
Integration with Cyber Resilience |
Include cyber threats and ICT disruptions within resilience planning |
Ransomware affecting customer account access or fraud systems |
|
Third-Party Risk Management |
Identify dependency on external service providers |
BancNet, telecommunications providers, and payment gateway partners |
|
Scenario Testing |
Test severe but plausible scenarios affecting customer services |
Core banking outage, cyberattack on digital channels, branch network disruption, telecommunications failure |
|
Governance and Oversight |
Assign ownership and accountability |
Business service owner for Deposit and Account Services reports resilience metrics to management |
|
Continuous Improvement |
Update resilience arrangements using lessons learned |
Improve controls following ATM network failures or service disruptions |
These Sub-CBS activities provide the foundation for the subsequent stages of operational resilience implementation: Dependency Mapping (MD), Process and Resource Mapping (MPR), Impact Tolerance (iTo), Severe but Plausible Scenarios (SuPS), and Scenario Testing (ST).
This structure aligns with the expectations set by BSP Circular 1203 and supports Equicom Savings Bank’s ability to sustain critical banking services during disruptions.
The identification and documentation of the detailed Sub-CBS processes for CBS-1 Deposit and Account Services provide Equicom Savings Bank with a structured operational view of one of its most critical customer-facing services.
Rather than viewing deposit services as a single business activity, the decomposition into discrete processes reveals the interconnected operational activities required to sustain customer account access and transaction processing.
This level of detail supports a more comprehensive understanding of operational dependencies across people, technology, facilities, data, and third parties.
Furthermore, this process-level analysis serves as a critical input to the broader Operational Resilience Planning Methodology.
The identified Sub-CBS components serve as the basis for dependency mapping, impact tolerance definition, resilience measurement, and scenario testing activities as expected under BSP Circular No. 1203.
Through this approach, Equicom Savings Bank strengthens its capability to anticipate disruptions, maintain essential services within acceptable thresholds, and continuously improve resilience capabilities while protecting customers and meeting regulatory expectations.
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| CBS-1 Deposit and Account Services | |||||
| CBS-1 DP | CBS-1 MD | CBS-1 MPR | CBS-1 ITo | CBS-1 SbPS | CBS-1 ST |
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