As we have virtually no globe signal at our house it was a great step forward when BDO introduced the one time password generator in their mobile app, this meant not having to rely on a text from them with a PIN that i had to use to log in within 5 min, since the middle of last month the password generator has been "temporarily" unavailable so i decided to change my contact No to smart as we receive a decent smart signal at our house, last week i activated this change at a BDO ATM as instructed but as of now it is still waiting to be approved. The last thing i wanted to do is actually go to the bank in person due to the long lines and virtually no social distancing but yesterday i did, i explained the situation to a very helpful young man and he told me they can't approve the change and it has to be done by the Manila office so he called the "hotline" 2 hours later (i am not exaggerating) he still had not got past the recorded voice to resolve the situation but he did explain to me that last month there had been a serious hacking incident involving BDO and Unionbank and that's the reason that the password generator and everything else is f*cked up. As by now i was being overcome by hunger i gave up and left but i did wonder why BDO had never informed me about the hacking, almost everyday they send me emails and texts urging me to sign up to various offers, rewards and pay wallets to make life easier but no mention of something really important.
The BDO hack has been all over the news lately. Here's an example https://www.rappler.com/business/bangko-sentral-bdo-still-uncertain-how-much-hackers-got/