The digital currency exchange Coins.ph said last week that the central bank of the Philippines has approved the company’s pilot programme for PHPC, a stablecoin backed by the Philippine Peso.
According to the release, the programme will be supported by Coins.ph’s cash and currency equivalents kept in Philippine bank accounts and will fall within the BSP’s Regulatory Sandbox Framework. The stablecoin’s advantages in “real-world applications while monitoring its impact on the existing financial ecosystem” will be evaluated as part of the pilot project.
Wei Zhou, the chief executive officer of Coins.ph and a former chief financial officer of Binance, stated at a press conference that the stablecoin was approved for public testing in April and that the company intends to launch it on its platform by the beginning of June, according to local publications.
Zhou stated that the pilot’s performance will be tracked, and if predetermined benchmarks are satisfied, they hope to receive complete approval and be able to “leave the sandbox.”
A wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) will be issued by the Philippines over the next two years, excluding a retail CBDC, as stated in the recent restriction on Binance’s operations within the country. With a $12 billion remittance market, one of the largest in the world, digital payments company Strike has recently extended its global money transfer service to the country.
A report stated that Coins.ph intends to include the stablecoin into remittance platforms in nations where the Philippines receives substantial remittance flows.