Coins.ph gets BSP approval to roll out peso stablecoin

Digital asset provider Coins.ph said on Wednesday it has secured the approval of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to issue Philippine peso-backed stablecoin PHPC, which it plans to make available on its platform by early June.

In a briefing in Taguig City, Coins.ph chief executive officer Wei Zhou said it secured sandbox approval from the central bank to publicly test the stablecoin in April after starting the process in the first quarter of 2023.

The sandbox period is estimated to last for two to three months, during which the firm seeks to meet key performance indicators (KPIs) and add some 20,000 to 30,000 users.

The PHPC will be pegged 1:1 to the Philippine peso, making it the first peso-backed stablecoin set to be available for retail. It is backed by cash and cash equivalents stored in Philippine bank accounts and is open for peer-to-peer and business-to-business transactions.

“While PHPC presents a variety of potential applications in trading and payments, we anticipate remittances to be a foremost use case for Filipinos, as PHPC will not only reduce costs; it also means that now peso transactions can happen 24/7 and in real time,” Zhou said.

“PHPC will empower Filipinos to transact seamlessly and securely in the digital economy while also providing a stable store of value as they participate in the rapidly evolving digital asset landscape,” he added.

While the PHPC is set to be initially available on the Coins.ph platform, the firm said it is now in talks with listing the coin on other platforms and making it available to a broader market.

Zhou said in January that Coins.ph targets to double its user base in 2024 as the firm seeks to expand overseas and widen its global footprint to cover five continents this year after acquiring licenses in Europe, Latin America, Australia, and Africa. — VBL, GMA Integrated News