RCBC vows to return part of stolen money to Bangladesh if found liable

MANILA, Philippines – The president of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) on Tuesday promised to compel his bank’s board members to give back part of the $81 million stolen from the central bank of Bangladesh if found guilty of money laundering.

 

President-on-leave Lorenzo Tan made the vow when asked by Sen. Ralph Recto if the bank is open to the possibility of returning even a part of the $81 million.

 

“So, if we are found liable, yes, I would recommend to the board to set aside certain sum of money,” Tan said.

 

Recto first asked Tan about RCBC’s profit last year as well as its market cap and later on asked the bank president if they are affected by the money laundering issue. The senator suggested that its profit and market cap might improve if they will return a part of the $81 million. Tan said the bank earned around P5.2 billion and had a market cap value of around P40 to P45 billion at present but admitted that its value is now 50 percent less of what it should be.

 

“If we try about $80 million and 30 million masasauli, assuming lang, natira $50 million at roughly P2.2 billion -- assuming that the RCBC gives this to the Bank of Bangladesh, your five billion profit minus 2.2, kita pa rin kayo ng three billion? And then maybe your market price will improve back to what it used to be and you would gain from that anyway and maybe your stock price will hit whatever value and you make the protocol corrections and maybe you can gain 90 billion more again,” Recto said.

 

Although Tan admitted the lowered market cap value, he said it was not entirely because of the money laundering issue but also because of the “fluctuation of the stock.”

 

“I think our business is an actuarial business. Again, we have 16 products or 16 services that we sell to every corporate or consumer/customer. And we either lose money on bad loans, bad trades, or operational losses like this one. On the average, we provide one to two billion a year on those types of losses,” he explained.

 

RCBC has been involved in the money laundering case after stolen multi-million US dollars from Bangladesh suspiciously went through the bank and then got transferred to five account holders in its Jupiter, Makati City branch.