BDO: We find ways (to take your money!)

The only reason why I bank with BDO is the convenience of their numerous branches and long banking hours.  Everywhere you go there will be a BDO branch for sure. Another thing that I find convenient is their BDO app that can send money to other BDO account without enrollment.  It’s very convenient! But lo and behold when I read a blogpost that BDO will start charging P10.00 for every *send money to an UN-Enrolled BDO account* transaction, it got me thinking. Why the hell do they need to charge P10.00 for this transaction? Do they want us to waste our time and line up at the branches?  If yes, then why make an app that helps your customers?? I find it stupid really.  Really really stupid.  I mean, the money just goes around their system.  It’s not as if the money transferred is to another bank!  It’s within the SAME BANK!! Here’s a screen shot from their OFFICIAL Facebook Page

My question is – ARE THESE CHARGES VALID?  Who approves these kinds of charges? How the hell do we enroll all the accounts that we want to make deposits to?  Do we have that great foresight? I’m sure there’s a government entity that approves these charges – so WHO IS THAT government entity or office?  I want to make a complaint on it. I’m sure there are a LOT of us that will be affected by this P10.00 charge.  When you think about it, P10.00 is quite minimal but IMAGINE THE MAGNITUDE OF MONEY INVOLVED ACROSS ALL THE BDO account holders who use this facility in their apps.  Take for example 100 people do this on a daily basis that’s 100 x P10.00 = P1,000.00/day x 365 days in a year, that’s already P365,000.00 a year!  And I was just being CONSERVATIVE on my calculations!  Imagine if it balloons to 500 people using that *send money to an un-enrolled account* 500 x P10.00 = P5,000/day x 365 days!  that’s a whopping P1,825,000.00 – more than 1 million a year earned because people used the app to send money!