SEC seeks transfer of lending firms’ oversight to BSP

Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!

Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Visit Suniway.ph to learn

April 15, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to rid itself permanently of financing and lending firms, as it seeks to transfer oversight of these companies to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

“I am ready to turn over this function to the BSP. Financing and lending companies are one of the serious headaches of the SEC,” SEC commissioner Rogelio Quevedo said.

“I have always maintained that since this is credit, it should have properly belonged to the BSP. But the law placed it with the joint regulatory ecosystem of the SEC and BSP. I am ready to have the entire finance and lending department be transferred to the BSP. Probably it is better to transfer the regulation entirely to BSP because that is one big headache to the SEC,” he said.

Quevedo said he has submitted a position paper about the proposed transfer to Congress early this year.

The SEC has regulatory and supervisory authority over financing and lending companies under Republic Act 8556 (Financing Company Act of 1998) and Republic Act 9474 (Lending Company Regulation Act of 2007), as amended.

Through its Financing and Lending Companies Department (FinLend), the commission currently supervises financing and lending firms in the country.

“That is where my headache comes from, in FinLend. There are so many scams. SEC’s expertise is really on financial regulation, insider trading and we supervise the PSE (Philippine Stock Exchange), particularly securities trading,” Quevedo said.

“But now, we also regulate these P1 million capitalization financing and lending companies. It’s a lot of work, and then we have to dedicate about 80 people for this, but that is small,” Quevedo said.

According to the SEC commissioner, the number of financing and lending companies in the country is expected to further increase once the commission lifts the moratorium on the registration of new online lending platforms soon.

Quevedo, however, is not raising his hopes that his proposal will happen.

“I want it, but it appears the legislators and the BSP are not enthusiastic,” he said.

If not approved, Quevedo said the SEC has no choice but to perform its duty as mandated by law.

Meanwhile, Quevedo said the SEC is eyeing to come out with a definition of corporations vested with public interest to further tighten its governance.

“Because now, what is being watched carefully are the listed companies. We will come out with a definition of corporations vested with public interest. And one best example is corporations with more than P1 billion in government contracts,” Quevedo said.

“We have noted that the flood control companies have contracts worth billions, but their capitalization is only P1 million,” he said.

Quevedo said the move comes even before the commission received a letter from certain fund managers calling for tighter rules around use-of-proceeds disclosures.

Bloomberg has earlier reported that a group of 11 fixed-income investors sent a letter to the SEC and government treasury seeking for the introduction of stricter reporting standards for state-backed projects.