Chile watch: Financial portability rules enter force, bank suffers cyberattack

Chile’s financial portability rules enter force on Tuesday.

The legislation makes it easier and cheaper for consumers and small businesses to change financial services provider. 

Under the framework, the new provider is responsible for carrying out the account or product transfer process.   

The law encompasses the likes of current accounts, credit cards, mortgages and auto loans.

In a statement, the finance ministry said 13.6mn people, 189,372 small businesses and 653,042 microenterprises in Chile have a financial product.

Finance minister Ignacio Briones (pictured, right) said the move would spur competition to the benefit of consumers, and urged them to obtain as many quotes as possible in order to get the best offer. Briones was accompanied by Chilean state lender BancoEstado chairman Sebastián Sichel (pictured).

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BancoEstado continued to work to resume normal operations on Monday after officials detected malicious software in its systems over the weekend.

The bank announced the closure of its branch network before opening some on Monday. Clients were urged to use the likes of internet banking. 

BancoEstado alerted financial sector watchdog CMF via the latter’s operational incident reporting system.

In a statement, the bank said neither client funds or bank assets had been affected.