Philippines issues cloud computing rules for banks

Becomes second Asian after Singapore country to do so.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank, has issued a set of rules regulating the storage and management of bank data stored on the "cloud." BSP this month said it approved Resolution 1286 providing guidelines on the use of cloud computing in the financial service industry.

Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. said BSP realizes that allowing third parties to handle bank data could pose some risks. To address this, the BSP’s new IT regulations framework requires that customer information be stored in “private clouds” designed to be safer since the infrastructure is under the control of the bank at all times.

Unlike other countries, the Philippines will allow banks to store their customer data in private clouds that are outside the country as long as all safety measures are followed.

Other data such as marketing materials and other non-essential information could be stored by banks in public clouds, which are less secure as these are made up of servers shared by other clients, said Espenilla.

He said that since any leak of these data will not pose any risk to consumers, the BSP decided to be more lenient.

“We did not allow (cloud computing) before. That was for IT security reasons. Now, we are actually going to allow, explicitly under certain conditions, to ensure a secure environment.”