BACB provides an opportunity to any interested person - business partner, supplier, external contractor and other third party, a person whose employment relationship is about to begin, or a person who is about to sign a contract for the provision of a banking service with BACB, in cases where the information regarding the violations was received during pre-contractual relations, as well as to any individual in the course of performance of his/her work and official duties or in another work context, who has information about a violation in/by the Bank, became known in the course of his/her employment and duties or in any other work context, outside the provision of banking services to customers and customer relationships, the opportunity to report a violation or report unethical conduct under the terms and conditions of Whistleblower Protection Act.
Reports under Whistleblower Protection Act for breaches of Bulgarian law or European Union acts referred to in the Article 3 of the Act relating to the Bank's activities.
Reports shall be submitted in the form provided by the Act - a Form for registering a report under Whistleblower Protection Act of Commission for Personal Data Protection (cpdp.bg ) to the Data Protection Officer in person - from Monday to Friday during the working hours of the BACB (in advance agreed date).
You can download the form for registering an alert under Whistleblower Protection Act here
Contact details of the Data Protection Officer (DPO) of BACB: e-mail: dpo@bacb.bg.
Please note:
- No proceedings are initiated in respect of anonymous reports;
- Signals which do not fall within the scope of Whistleblower Protection Act and the content of which does not warrant being considered credible will not be considered;
- Reports containing evidently false or misleading statements shall be returned with instructions to the whistleblower to correct the statements and to inform the whistleblower of his/ her responsibility for the allegation;
- In the event that the whistleblower does not comply with the requirements of the Act for filing, the whistleblower shall be notified in order to correct the irregularities. If they are not remedied within 7 days of the notification, the whistleblower shall be returned to the whistleblower together with the annexes thereto.
Please note that if you are a customer or a third party who wishes to make a complaint relating to customer service, including to express dissatisfaction with a particular product, banking service or service provided by the Bank, or to object to an act or omission by the Bank or its employee in the course of providing customer service to you, you have to use the complaints procedure described above.
Differences between a Customer Complaint and a Whistleblowing Report under the Whistleblower Protection Act:
- The subject matter of a Customer Complaint is a relationship between BACB and a customer arising out of a contract or use of a service/product.
- The subject matter of a whistleblowing under Whistleblower Protection Act are allegations of violations of Bulgarian law or acts of the European Union under Article 3 of Whistleblower Protection Act, which have come to the attention of the whistleblower in a work context (other than customer service).
- The Commission for Consumer Protection is the external competent authority for complaints.
- The external competent authority for whistleblowing reports is Commission for Personal Data Protection.
