Rizal Bank ignored stop-payment order despite orders from US Fed

Rizal Commercial Banking Corp have been accused of allowing the withdrawal of funds, stolen from Bangladesh's foreign reserves, despite receiving stop-payment orders from the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This has been revealed as part of an ongoing investigation into the $81m cyber heist by the Senate committee. It is alleged that if the stop-payment requested had been honoured, $58m of the $81m would have been preserved.

This came to light during the investigation into the $81 million cyber heist by a Senate committee, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported on Tuesday.



The Inquirer stated that during the hearing, Senator Teofisto “TG” Guingona III revealed that, after receiving the suspicious funds on Feb 5, the publicly listed RCBC received a “stop payment” order from the Fed at 5pm on Feb 8, which was a banking holiday in the country on account of the Chinese New Year.



“The stop payment order was received by your bank on Feb 8, 2016,” the Inquirer quoted Senator Teofisto as saying to RCBC president and CEO Lorenzo Tan.



"On the morning of Feb. 9, the first banking day, you should have seen the stop payment request. But apparently it was not honoured because the funds were withdrawn. All the funds were withdrawn,” the senator said.