[OR] [PTC] [E1] [C5] Identifying Critical Business Services

CBS Code

Recommended Critical Business Service

Why it should be treated as critical

Examples of resilience focus under BSP Circular No. 1203

CBS-1

Deposit and Account Services

Philtrust publicly offers savings, checking, time deposits, and foreign-currency deposit services. Disruption would immediately affect customers’ access to funds, balance integrity, branch servicing, and confidence in the bank.

Board-approved identification of the service as critical; defined tolerance for disruption; end-to-end mapping of people, process, technology, third parties, telecoms, and energy dependencies; testing against severe but plausible scenarios.

CBS-2

Payments and Funds Transfer Services

Philtrust’s public channels include InstaPay, PESONet, bills payment, and online fund transfer capabilities. Disruption could prevent customers and businesses from making time-sensitive payments and could create broader settlement and customer-harm issues.

Set time-based and volume/value-based disruption tolerances; assess payment-system interdependencies; include sectoral cyberattack or payment-settlement disruption scenarios in testing. BSP explicitly cites disturbances in payment and settlement systems and coordinated cyberattacks as severe but plausible examples.

CBS-3

Digital, ATM, and Branch-Based Customer Access

Philtrust states that it operates online banking, branches on near real-time connectivity, and ATMs. For many customers, the ability to access accounts and initiate or confirm transactions through these channels is the practical means by which core services are delivered.

Map the full service-delivery chain from channel initiation to completion; identify common-resource bottlenecks; assess public infrastructure dependencies such as telecommunications and power; ensure the IT environment, authentication, authorization, audit trails, and recovery processes are tested.

CBS-4

Lending and Credit Services

Philtrust publicly offers personal and corporate loans. For borrowers, disruptions can delay drawdowns, repayments, renewals, collateral processing, and collections, which may create customer harm and credit-control issues, especially for business clients.

Identify critical lending operations and their dependencies; embed them in BCM, incident response, and recovery plans; define triggers, roles, succession, and communication for disruptions affecting credit processing and servicing.

CBS-5

International Banking and Foreign Currency Services

Philtrust publicly references international services, foreign-currency products, remittances, and foreign letters of credit. These services are critical where customers depend on cross-border payments, import/export support, and foreign-currency account access.

Map third-party and external infrastructure dependencies; assess substitutability of service providers; test scenarios involving third-party failure, payment-system disruption, and prolonged outage affecting international transaction processing.

CBS-6

Trust, Fiduciary, and Investment Management Services

Philtrust publicly offers personal and institutional trust services, investment management, estate administration, escrow, insurance and pension plan administration, and stock registry/transfer services. These involve fiduciary duties, asset safeguarding, beneficiary servicing, and often time-sensitive legal or financial obligations.

Treat these as critical where disruption could cause material client harm; map specialist people, records, custodial processes, and third parties; ensure BCM and recovery guidance cover these activities and are tested under severe but plausible scenarios.

CBS-7

Treasury and Liquidity-Related Market Services

Philtrust’s annual report states that the bank provides treasury functions. For a universal bank, disruption in treasury-related activities can affect liquidity deployment, funding operations, and the bank’s ability to support critical customer and institutional obligations. This is a reasonable inference from the bank’s disclosed business model.

Apply board oversight, disruption tolerances, dependency mapping, and scenario testing, especially where disruption could affect broader market functioning or the bank’s ability to continue delivering other critical services.