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Philippine Central Bank Gives Approval to Coins.ph to Pilot Stablecoin in Top Remittance Market
The Philippines’ central bank has given its approval to digital currency exchange Coins.ph to test a Philippine peso-backed stablecoin called PHPC, the company said last week.
The program will be under the BSP’s Sandbox Regulatory Framework and will be supported by Coins.ph‘cash and cash equivalents held in Philippine bank accounts, the advertisement said. The pilot will evaluate the stablecoin’s benefits in “real-world applications while monitoring its impact on the existing financial ecosystem.”
Coins.ph CEO Wei Zhou, who was previously Binance’s CFO, said in a press conference that he obtained authorization to publicly test the stablecoin in April and plans to make it available on his platform in early June. local reports said.
Zhou said pilot performance will be monitored, and if certain metrics are met, they anticipate gaining full approval, allowing them to “break out of the sandbox.”
The Philippines recently blocked Binance from operating in the country and said it would issue a wholesale package central bank digital currency (CBDC) within two years, avoiding a retail CBDC. Digital payments company Beat also expanded its global money transfer service to the country, where the US$12 billion The remittance market is one of the largest in the world.
Coins.ph plans to integrate the stablecoin into remittance platforms in countries with significant remittance flows to the Philippines, a report he said.