Can You Reopen A Closed Bank Account In The Philippines?

It’s not actually a mortal sin if you fail to cope with banking requirements. Most banks if not all, have certain requirements for them not to close your bank account. Furthermore, the only requirement they may ask of you is standard remittance or the amount of money inside it. Although this might be the case, are we really sure that our accounts close after countless weeks of inactivity?

To answer that question, yes banks can close a bank account if the owner wants to. In addition, there are rules that banks incur so that a certain bank account wouldn’t get penalized or worse – close. Although they can most certainly do this, you do not have to worry because although you can’t reopen it again, you can very much open a new bank account with a new account number in the same bank.

Before we dive deep into this topic, you first need to know why and how your account closed. Is it your will to have it closed? Or did the bank close it for you? Weren’t you able to cope with banking requirements which led them to close your account? These are the questions you need answers to and yes, this may have influence on how you can again open an account.

Read: Banks in the Philippines: Maintaining Balance of Different Account Types

Just to let you know, a payroll account is different from a personal checking or savings account.

Here in the Philippines, in most cases and jobs, a Payroll Account is an account you get when you sign a contract for a company. After you resign, it’s already the company’s discretion if they’ll close or deactivate the account or keep it open. If they decide to close it, you have no way of reopening it because the company is the one who had it open for you.

However, if a personal regular account closes, here are the things you need to do if you want to open a new bank account *with a different account number* in the same bank:

1. First and foremost, determine the reason why it closed.

• If it is in your discretion;
• However if it was deactivated by the bank, know that there are certain reasons on why the bank decided to close it. Reasons like: (Inconsistent Remittances, Below Maintaining Balance, Interests)

2. After determining the reason, proceed to the nearest branch of the bank where you want to open a new bank account. Choosing the nearest branch can help you in the future because if you need to do banking, you will be required to do them where you opened your bank account.

3. Make sure you bring at least two (2) valid IDs because they might ask it from you upfront.

4. Tell the bank about your concern that your account got closed and that you want to reopen a bank account. From there, they’ll be able to determine and help you with your concern.

NOTE: There shouldn’t be any fees involved in opening a new bank account even if your previous account was closed due to interests, below-maintaining, or dormancy issues. It’s a new bank account so the previous shouldn’t matter.

Alternatively, we can also phone our banks and tell them that our bank account closed and that we want to open a new bank account.

They can contact their respective banks and inquire about their request. Although this process is less tedious, it might be more difficult. In comparison to just going to the nearest branch of their bank to directly state what happened and that they want to open a new bank account. Why? Going directly to the branch can minimize errors and compatibility issues that might go around when the account is being processed.

So in conclusion and just to make everything clear, you CANNOT reopen a bank account after it closed; YOU CAN OPEN A NEW BANK ACCOUNT IN THE SAME BANK, HOWEVER. As far as I am aware, banks don’t delete accounts because of transaction records they might need and for auditing purposes; which paves the road of reason why you can easily disregard a closed bank account and replace it with a new one.

Read also:

• Charges for ATM Withdrawal and Balance Inquiry of Philippine Banks
• BDO ERP (Easy Redemption Plan) – UITF Review and Requirements