The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas recently presented data showing that cybercrime threats driven by social engineering, hacking, and card fraud remain the biggest risk confronting the country’s financial system last year.
According to the report presented by BSP Deputy Governor Lyn Javier, social engineering account takeover and identity theft made up 76 percent of reported cyber fraud losses in 2025, followed by hacking at 13 percent, and card not present fraud at 8 percent.
The figures reflect a growing shift toward scam-driven, human-centered attacks as digital financial services expand and transactions move faster across interconnected platforms.
“When we look at the cyber threat landscape today, what immediately stands out is how interconnected the banking system is,” she said. “We now operate in a highly interconnected system. So, banks connected to banks, banks connected to third-party service providers and fintechs.”
Javier warned that the interconnectedness may deliver efficiency and convenience, but it also expands the attack surface for cyber threat actors. She added that the impact is amplified by the speed of digital payments and the ability of criminals to move funds quickly across multiple channels.
“Once an account is compromised, it gets transferred to multiple channels,” she said. “As the speed increases, the losses also increase, the window of recovery narrows down, and it allows the cyber crime to scale more rapidly than before.”
In response, the BSP is promoting a supervisory framework to manage information technology and cyber risks, but Javier also warns that advances in technology and the growing use of artificial intelligence could make scams harder to detect.
This will require stronger risk management and fraud systems within banks, better cyber hygiene among users, and continued coordination across regulators, law enforcement, telcos, the media, and the public.
As long as there are opportunities, scammers and criminal elements will always try to take advantage, putting us at risk. As government and financial institutions do what they can to make the financial system more secure as it rapidly evolves, the public also has the responsibility to secure their finances and ensure that the transactions they enter into are legitimate.*
