Philippines bank says no role in heist, Bangladesh Bank responsible

The Philippines bank through which $81 million stolen from Bangladesh's central bank was channelled in February said on Tuesday that the central bank was responsible for the heist, and so any liability should not be passed on.

Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) was responding to comments by a Bangladeshi investigator that some Bangladesh Bank officials deliberately exposed its computer systems and enabled hackers to steal the money from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Bangladesh Bank had been demanding that RCBC compensate it for the loss, blaming it for ignoring red flags. RCBC said it did nothing wrong.

"The statement of the Bangladesh investigator indicating acts of criminal negligence on the part of certain Bangladesh Bank officials validates what RCBC had been saying all along, and that is that Bangladesh Bank's own acts are the cause of its own loss," RCBC's lawyer Thea Daep told Reuters.